Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[MADAM SPEAKER in the Chair]

PRIVATE BUSINESS

HILL SAMUEL BANK AND UNITED DOMINIONS TRUST BILL [Lords].

Read a Second time, and committed.

Oral Answers to Questions — DEFENCE

Exports

Mr. Deva: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what was the level of defence exports in 1993.

The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr. Malcolm Rifkind): Defence equipment orders in 1993 were in excess of £6.6 billion.

Mr. Deva: Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that there are some 65 companies which are sub-contractors to the defence industry in my constituency? What is he doing to help them export more?

Mr. Rifkind: I am conscious that many hon. Members on both sides of the House have large numbers of companies, both contractors and sub-contractors, in their constituencies which are very much influenced by defence exports and defence industrial requirements. For that reason, we can all be satisfied that the United Kingdom is second only to the United States in the success that it has had in defence exports. That has not only provided substantial employment for this country, but has been of considerable benefit to our armed forces as a whole.

Mr. Clelland: Does the Secretary of State agree that an important influence in encouraging foreign governments to buy British is for our own Government to do just that? Will he confirm that it is his intention to end speculation and to order a further 200-plus Challenger 2 tanks from Vickers Defence Systems?

Mr. Rifkind: We recognise the importance of the defence needs of the armed forces to the United Kingdom's industrial requirements. Some 90 per cent. of the defence procurement budget is spent in the United Kingdom with United Kingdom companies. We are not yet in a position to announce further orders for Challenger tanks; we will do so as soon as we are able.

Mr. Waterson: Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that, as long as we continue defence exports on such a major scale, it is in our interests also to subscribe to those

initiatives sponsored by the UN and others for humanitarian rules in such exports? That will mean that companies such as Computing Devices Ltd. in my constituency will be able to continue to offer employment to my constituents in that field.

Mr. Rifkind: Yes, we attach importance to the considerations that my hon. Friend rightly mentions.

Deregulation Initiative

Mr. Gordon Prentice: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on the impact on his Department of the Government's deregulation initiative.

The Minister of State for Defence Procurement (Mr. Jonathan Aitken): My Department is playing a full part in the Government's deregulation initiative, putting particular emphasis on streamlining contracts procedures and improving communications with industry.

Mr. Prentice: Is not the deregulation initiative not so much about cutting red tape as about cutting costs and imperilling safety and security? Will the Minister assure the House today that there will be no change to the current arrangements for providing fire cover at defence establishments such as Porton Down and Aldermaston?

Mr. Aitken: The hon. Gentleman has completely misunderstood the nature of the Government's deregulation initiative. It is not to do with cutting costs, although we have often hoped that the Government-wide initiative will result in less red tape and will therefore remove burdens on industry. In relation to defence, I can assure him that safety remains paramount and that we do not envisage cuts that will imperil the safety of any members of the armed forces.

Mr. Luff: Can my hon. Friend give any details of what he is doing to streamline the contracts and procedures to which he referred in his first answer?

Mr. Aitken: We have a number of initiatives planned. In particular, we will be carrying out a major review which will result in new guidelines for industry being published. The whole point of the changes is to simplify and streamline and make it easier for industry to put forward bids and win contracts from us. We are also offering, in many cases, longer-term contracts which will give greater stability to industry itself.

Training Centres

Mr. Llwyd: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what reductions are planned in military outward bound type training centres; and if he will make a statement.

The Minister of State for the Armed Forces (Mr. Jeremy Hanley): Separately from the defence costs study, my Department is planning to study the scope for maximum efficiency and rationalisation of adventurous training as part of a wider review of how and where Army-sponsored training is conducted.

Mr. Llwyd: Does the Minister agree that the joint service mountain training camp at Tywyn in my constituency is an excellent establishment? Does he also agree that, as a result of last year's consultation on staffing, things have been a little shambolic between the Ministry and the employees? Given that a tri-service review is being


conducted, the results of which will, I understand, be announced in July, does that mean that the future of the camp will then be known?
Finally, if and when redundancies have to be made, do I have the Minister's assurance that proper consultation will take place according to the recent landmark decision at the European Court of Justice?

Mr. Hanley: I was a graduate of Morfa camp, Tywyn, and I enjoyed my time there very much. I cannot, however, give the hon. Gentleman the assurance that he seeks because the adventurous training study has been removed from the defence costs study and will be considered over a slightly longer time scale than that provided for the latter. The decision on the exact provision of camps that we will need in the future will be made during the summer or in the early autumn, not with the defence costs study.

Mr. Fabricant: Will my hon. Friend congratulate the 3rd Battalion of the Staffordshire Regiment on running outward bound courses for young people in Staffordshire and the west midlands? Is my hon. Friend aware that only last Saturday I abseiled down the Roaches, with the battalion, in the Staffordshire moorlands?

Mr. Hanley: I had heard of my hon. Friend's great courage in abseiling down. As was explained to me, he showed that not only do we have the technology, but he does, too, to survive such an experience.

Merchant Vessels

Mr. Bryan Davies: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many merchant vessels are currently available to the United Kingdom for defence purposes.

Mr. Hanley: Vessels are chartered on the worldwide market, so naturally availability varies from day to day.

Mr. Davies: Is it true that during the Gulf war only five of the vessels that were chartered were British? What kind of deal did the British Government get out of the charter costs involved in that exercise?

Mr. Hanley: The hon. Gentleman is right—out of 156 vessels that were chartered during Operation Granby, 151 were foreign flagged. Not only that, but during Operation Grapple, which is taking place now on the Adriatic, all the 18 ships that have been chartered are foreign flagged. One reason for that is the success of the British merchant fleet in having contracts from which it would not wish to resile. Surely our armed forces should make sure that they get the best value for money for the ships that we need to hire.

Civilian Employees

Mr. McAllion: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many civilian employees there are in the Ministry of Defence.

Mr. Aitken: The total number of civilian personnel employed by the Ministry of Defence on 1 April 1994 was 143,700.

Mr. McAllion: Is the Minister aware of the concern among some MOD civilian employees at the proposal to establish a military home service engagement battalion, consisting of redundant ex-service men, paid off as part of the Government's defence cuts, which may lead to job losses among MOD guards? Will the Minister therefore

give an absolute guarantee to the House that whatever the Blelloch report recommends, there will be no reduction in the staffing of the newly formed MOD guard service?

Mr. Aitken: All that I can tell the hon. Gentleman is that the matter is currently under study. It is not possible to give him an answer at this stage.

Mr. Wilkinson: How can the proposal to build new headquarters for the Procurement Executive at Abbey Wood, near Bristol, which will house hundreds of civilian personnel, be in tune with the "Front Line First" proposals that my hon. Friend is currently examining? Should not Her Majesty's forces now be able to procure direct from industry rather than having to deal through this expensive bureaucracy?

Mr. Aitken: We are certainly casting our eagle eye over any aspect of the MOD which could be described as excessively bureaucratic. The headquarters are also being considered as part of our defence costs study and I cannot anticipate my right hon. and learned Friend's statement at this stage.

Mr. Martlew: Will the Minister apologise for the deliberate leaking from his Department of the findings of the defence costs study, which is likely to mean the loss of 22,000 jobs, including many civilian jobs? Does he agree that those who work on military bases can have no faith in the Ministry of Defence's consultative procedures? For example, at RAF Carlisle recently, the trade unions put up a viable alternative to closing the base, but the Minister treated it with contempt and used it as an excuse to hold back a decision until after the European elections. Is not consultation a sham under this Government?

Mr. Aitken: That little diatribe was full of rubbish, as I have come to expect from the hon. Gentleman. First, if he thinks that Ministers deliberately leak the unwelcome information and speculation that appears in the press, he needs his head examined. It is the last thing that we would do. Secondly, he is ill-advised to cast doubt on the sincere and honourable consultation procedures, which we always implement in full and will continue to implement once the results of the defence costs study are announced. We will honour those consultation procedures. Finally, the hon. Gentleman is wrong about defects in the consultation procedure on the item that he mentioned.

Mr. David Shaw: Is my hon. Friend aware that there are a number of civilian employees at the Royal Marine school of music based in Deal? Is he also aware of the considerable unemployment in the Dover and Deal area and that one way to solve that problem would be to announce the setting up of a combined defence school of music based in Deal?

Mr. Aitken: I am certainly aware of the facts which my hon. Friend mentions, not least because I live in the Dover and Deal area and my constituency boundary is adjacent to that of my hon. Friend. We also share the same local newspaper, in which he is well recorded on those matters. I shall consider his ingenious suggestion, which is part of the defence costs study.

Mr. Trimble: Will the Minister consider the position of some civilian employees in Northern Ireland who were formerly with the Property Services Agency, but, because of the circumstances there, were recently transferred to the


MOD? I refer particularly to some ladies who have given many years of loyal service in difficult circumstances. They are currently being declared redundant—not because the job has disappeared—and the readvertising of the post has been done in such a way as to deprive them of a real opportunity of applying. Will the Minister look into that injustice to remedy it?

Mr. Aitken: Yes, I will look into the point which the hon. Gentleman raises. I was unaware of it until now, but if he will be good enough to send me details, I will look sympathetically at the matter.

Departmental Land

Mr. Foulkes: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what is his latest estimate of the total area of land in the United Kingdom owned by his Department.

Mr. Hanley: Just under 600,000 acres of freehold and leasehold—including foreshore—as at 1 April 1994.

Mr. Foulkes: While I would normally welcome the disposal of defence land, will the Minister assure us that one disposal that he will strongly resist is that of Rosyth naval base, as that would not only devastate the economy of Fife, but would undermine our defence capability and represent a betrayal of all the promises given by the Secretary of State at the Dispatch Box when we discussed Rosyth dockyard?

Mr. Hanley: The hon. Gentleman would not expect me to answer that question because a specific question later on the Order Paper deals with exactly that point.

Mr. Viggers: Is my hon. Friend aware that, in constituencies such as the one that I represent at Gosport, the Ministry of Defence owns as much as a third of the land? It is therefore crucial that, when land is released, there should be the closest possible discussion between the Ministry of Defence and the local authority. Will he confirm that the pattern set by Lord Cranbourne over the release of a small portion of land at Leigh-on-Solent will be followed when the Ministry releases land?

Mr. Hanley: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. His local authority of Gosport has an excellent record of co-operation with the land service of the Ministry of Defence. We shall co-operate with every local authority before land is disposed of. That is in the interests not only of local authorities and people who live in the area, but the Ministry of Defence. We are trying to reduce our land with each passing year. It is good financially for the Ministry of Defence, which made a net reduction last year of 1,389 acres, and the sale of more than 12,000 acres is currently in the pipeline.

Mr. Jamieson: Will the Minister consider the land on which Devonport dockyard stands? Does he recall that last year the Secretary of State for Defence, who is sitting beside him, said that only 350 jobs would be lost at Devonport, whereas the reality is nearly 2,000? Is his Department incompetent, or was he deliberately misleading the House?

Mr. Hanley: The hon. Gentleman has got it wrong. The job losses that the management announced last week were the result of efficiency measures that they had introduced.

Therefore, my right hon. and learned Friend has kept his word entirely. I should have thought that an accusation such as that on his birthday was below the belt.

European Union

Mr. Ian Taylor: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what discussions have been held within Western European Union of defence relationships with countries applying to join the European Union.

Mr. Rifkind: At their meeting in Luxembourg on 9 May, WEU Ministers expressed their willingness to strengthen contacts with the four acceding countries to the European Union. One of the four, Norway, is already an associate member of WEU and participates in its discussions.

Mr. Taylor: Given that the countries that join the European Union, including those in central Europe, have the right to join WEU and the mutual security guarantees, has my right hon. and learned Friend considered the security implications of which countries should be invited to join the EU?

Mr. Rifkind: The countries of central and eastern Europe that have shown an interest in the European Union have already been admitted as associate partners to WEU, but I emphasise that that does not involve their participating in the security guarantees. That would be a much more fundamental reform, whether it would apply to WEU or to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, and could only be part of a much more long-term consideration of their proper relationship with the countries of WEU.

Mr. Hardy: Does the Secretary of State accept that many of the eastern European countries that have become associated with WEU now believe that they have received a form of security guarantee which, he will accept, western Europe in its present condition could not deliver? Does he accept that there has been some carelessness on the part of Ministers—not necessarily British alone—in accepting that arrangement without being able to provide any form of guarantee whatsoever?

Mr. Rifkind: The hon. Gentleman is correct to say that there is no formal treaty guarantee. Having said that, of course we have an interest in the security and stability of all the new democracies of central and eastern Europe, including those that have become associate members of WEU. However, it is necessary to distinguish between a legitimate interest in their security and stability and formal treaty guarantees, which have not been provided.

Sir Donald Thompson: Does my right hon. and learned Friend think that the European Parliament would be of any use to WEU?

Mr. Rifkind: It is clear that WEU is to provide the basis of closer European co-operation, because it is crucial that any such co-operation is complementary to our obligations to the Atlantic alliance and does not in any way undermine them. Therefore, we do not envisage a role for the European Parliament in that area.

Bosnia

Mr. Mullin: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what recent discussions he has had with his EC colleagues about the situation in Bosnia; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Hanley: My right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Defence regularly meets ministerial colleagues from EU nations to discuss matters of mutual interest, including the situation in Bosnia.

Mr. Mullin: Can the Minister give an assurance that British and EEC troops will remain in Bosnia until there is a comprehensive settlement? Is he satisfied that British troops in Bosnia have been receiving adequate back-up from the United Nations? I am thinking of a couple of incidents last month—one in which Serb tanks were permitted to run through the Sarajevo exclusion zone and another in which the arms of British soldiers were confiscated and their commander was obliged by the Serbs to read out a humiliating statement.

Mr. Hanley: The hon. Gentleman points to two instances which we greatly regret. However, during my visit there last week, when I spent three days in Bosnia and on the Adriatic, I discovered that the position has changed dramatically for the better. There is now an almost comprehensive peace throughout the middle of Bosnia, the ceasefire between the Croats and the Bosnian Muslims is sticking and the cessation of hostilities along the confrontation line is managing to be sustained. There are occasional instances of firing, either of mortar or small arms, but the work that our troops are doing there is still extremely important and valuable. Due to their work, we have probably saved hundreds of thousands of lives in the time that we have been there. While decisions have still to be taken, we shall continue to do that good work for as long as necessary.

Mr. Cormack: Does my hon. Friend accept that if there has been an improvement—which we warmly welcome—it is because the Serbs at last believe that we mean to hold firm to our resolve to keep the safe areas safe? Will he ensure that the Serbs are never again given the false signals that allowed them to bombard Gorazde?

Mr. Hanley: I believe that an element of realism has broken out on all sides of the conflict. I hope that the relative peace that exists now will lead to a comprehensive peace. The only form of peace that we can have in the Balkans is one at a political level between politicians. We cannot enforce a military solution there, but we can do much to help in the meantime. I believe that my hon. Friend is right in his analysis.

Army

Mr. Enright: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what plans he has to change the size of the British Army.

Mr. Rifkind: I intend to maintain and, where possible, enhance the planned fighting strength of the British Army.

Mr. Enright: Does the Secretary of State recall that the Select Committee on Defence described as scandalous the amount of support that existed for the Challenger 1 tank fleet? Will the defence costs study make that even worse?

Mr. Rifkind: On the contrary—one purpose of the defence costs study is to ensure that we have the resources available so that the armoured strength of the Army, as well as the other services, can be accommodated in a proper and effective way, thereby enhancing the Army's fighting strength.

Mr. Butcher: Does my right hon. and learned Friend feel that the political situation in eastern and central Europe is more or less stable than it was five years ago? If he shares my suspicion that there are trends in eastern and central Europe which may ultimately be dangerous to western Europe, what implications does he believe that will have for the size of the British Army in the future?

Mr. Rifkind: Five years ago, there were several million Warsaw pact soldiers in the centre of Germany, just 48 hours away from the low countries and the English channel. Today, Russian troops are a thousand miles further east and the Warsaw pact no longer exists. Therefore, although my hon. Friend is right to remind us of the great instability, uncertainty and fragmentation in Europe, I believe that, overall, the threat to the peace of Europe is considerably less than it was five years ago.

Mr. Macdonald: Will the Secretary of State confirm the value to the royal artillery and the economy of the Western Isles of the testing and training range at Balivanish in the Hebrides? Will he confirm that if he is seeking savings in the operation of that range, they can be found by contracting out work to civilian labour, while retaining the base and its contribution to the island economy?

Mr. Rifkind: As the hon. Gentleman is aware, those matters are currently under review. I am acutely conscious of the contribution that the range makes to the local economy in Uist and Benbecula and I understand the hon. Gentleman's concern. We hope to bring to an end as soon as possible the uncertainty affecting the range and other comparable facilities.

Mr. Garnier: How do our plans for the British Army compare with those of the French Government for their army?

Mr. Rifkind: I believe that in terms of their fighting strength the armies are comparable. The French army has a large conscript element, so its manpower is considerably greater than that of the British Army, which is entirely professional. I believe that the British Army's fighting capability remains, man for man, the best in the world.

Rosyth

Mr. Salmond: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what further consideration he has given to the position of the Rosyth naval base; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Rifkind: Rosyth is designated as a base for minor war vessels and as the location for a number of other defence activities. These provide civilian local employment of around 1,300, as well as for Royal Navy uniformed personnel. The future of the royal naval base is being examined—along with other naval bases and naval infrastructure—as part of the "Front Line First" study. I expect to announce final proposals next month.

Mr. Salmond: Everyone in Scotland is aware of why the Tory Member for Plymouth, Sutton (Mr. Streeter) wants to close Rosyth dockyard, but why should the Tory candidate for Monklands, East this morning say of the naval base that it was yesterday's installation unable to meet the demands of tomorrow? Can we have some candour from the Secretary of State? Has an effective decision been taken to close Rosyth naval base? If it has not, why is the Secretary of State for Scotland clearly preparing politically for its closure instead of fighting for its survival?

Mr. Rifkind: No decision has been taken on the closure of any defence facilities in the United Kingdom. As the hon. Member has been campaigning for years for the effective closure of the Faslane base on the Clyde, along with the thousands of jobs associated with Polaris and Trident, he is in danger of giving humbug a bad name.

Mr. Ian Bruce: If, sadly, the Government decide to close Rosyth as a naval base, will my right hon. and learned Friend revise the decision that was made after the last time the Government decided to save Rosyth—they decided then to move operational sea training away from Portland—particularly as I understand that the latest studies into the cost effectiveness of moving flag officers' sea training show that there are fewer savings available and more costs than were originally thought?

Mr. Rifkind: My hon. Friend's question is, of course, speculative, but I should say to him and the House with regard not only to Rosyth naval base, but to all naval establishments and infrastructure, that the criterion that I shall apply—and it is the proper criterion—is the need of the Royal Navy to ensure its fighting capability in the years to come. The Royal Navy clearly needs to ensure that its resources are used to maximise its fighting strength; whether in regard to bases or other facilities, that must be the criterion to apply.

Ms Rachel Squire: Does the Secretary of State agree that in 1991 commitments were made by the Government to a continuing and important role for Rosyth naval base for the defence of this country? Does he also agree that only last year he announced that the rescue co-ordination centre for the whole of the United Kingdom would be RAF Pitreavie? Will he today announce his commitment to a future for both Pitreavie and Rosyth?

Mr. Rifkind: The hon. Lady is aware that the "Front Line First" study is considering these matters. As she knows, I cannot give her the conclusions today. Not only are we conscious of the important contribution that Scotland has made to the defence needs of the United Kingdom, but I have not the slightest doubt that Scotland will continue to make a crucial contribution to meeting the defence needs of the United Kingdom and providing the defence infrastructure for that purpose.

Mr. Oppenheim: Will my right hon. and learned Friend be less churlish and more warmly welcome Opposition Members' apparent conversion to the cause of strong defence, ignoring, of course, the irony that only a few years ago they were calling for 25 per cent. reductions in our defence and for chucking away the nuclear deterrent? Is it not ironic that, now that the cold war is over, not least because capitalism has beaten socialism, they now think that we should be armed to the teeth?

Mr. Rifkind: Not only is my hon. Friend correct, but the defence review called for by the Opposition would lead not only to savage cuts in defence support, but make unsustainable the front line on which the effectiveness of our armed forces depends.

Mr. Menzies Campbell: Does not the closure of the Rosyth naval base raise a number of strategic issues of profound and irreversible importance? Is not the likelihood that if the Rosyth base is closed it will never be reopened? What evidence is there that the Government have conducted the strategic review with our NATO allies that is necessary in order to determine the consequences for our and their maritime defence if the base is closed?

Mr. Rifkind: The hon. and learned Gentleman can assume that, in giving the Government advice, the Royal Navy has first addressed the question of its strategic requirements with regard to the use of naval power. That, of course, must be the first question to be asked and it is indeed the way in which the Royal Navy has approached these matters.

Dr. Reid: When the Secretary of State tells us that no decision has been made about Rosyth, no one in Rosyth, in Scotland or in the House believes him. If he wishes to prove that he is correct, will he today give us the categorical assurance that he refused to give at our last Defence Question Time and promise the House that all the figures for the costing of naval support will be placed before, and debated in, the House before a decision to close any base—including Rosyth—is made? If the Secretary of State cannot give us that categorical assurance today, it will not only be another betrayal of the people of Scotland but an open admission that he is not in charge of the review process and that the commander-in-chief of cuts is the First Lord of the Treasury.

Mr. Rifkind: As the First Lord of the Treasury is the Prime Minister, it is not unreasonable for him to have some influence on these matters.
The hon. Gentleman's empty rhetoric is not relevant to the issues that we are discussing. He can assume that any decisions that are reached in regard to any defence establishment in the United Kingdom will be accompanied by proper consultation, and a proper explanation of the basis on which those decisions have been reached.

Iraq

Mr. Dalyell: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what is the latest assessment of aerial photographs taken by Tornado aircraft since 23 March over the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates; and what action he has taken since the visit of the hon. Member for Linlithgow to meet officials at his request in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office on 23 March.

Mr. Hanley: We continue to take aerial photography of southern Iraq. This shows widespread drying out of the marshes, the diversion and drying out of the River Euphrates and the burning of villages and reed beds.

Mr. Dalyell: How do the interpreters know that the burning that is taking place is any different from the burning that has been carried out by the madan for at least 5,000 years, for hygiene reasons? I found the Ministry's interpreters profoundly unconvincing.

Mr. Hanley: I know that the hon. Gentleman believes that the burning of roofs and buildings that we have seen is the result of attempts to cure local health problems. The extent of those health problems must be massive. I know that he also believes that the draining of the River Euphrates is nothing more than an agricultural project; if that is so, it is a massive agricultural project. I can only say that honest, independent people have concluded from the evidence that these are the actions of the Iraqi Government, who are deliberately trying to harm the Shia marsh Arabs.

Miss Emma Nicholson: Can the Minister explain why the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) does not realise that swallowing the poisoned propaganda of Saddam Hussein leads to a total destruction of the intellect just as swiftly as the thalium poison pumped into the prisoners whom he releases from prison leads to the destruction of the body? Does not the hon. Member for Linlithgow understand how appalling the cruelty is? Perhaps we in Parliament now have a Lord Haw-Haw in our midst?

Mr. Hanley: I recognise that my hon. Friend and the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) have both seen the same evidence, and have reached diametrically opposed conclusions. I can only say that the evidence of the military is more in line with my hon. Friend's views than with those of the hon. Gentleman.

Air Cadets

Mr. Bill Walker: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will give details of the number of boys and girls in membership of the air cadets in the years (a) 1979, (b) 1989 and (c) 1992.

Mr. Hanley: Since 1979, the number of air cadets has remained constant at around 49,000. Whereas there were no girls in the air cadets in 1979, there were more than 9,000 in 1989 and just over 11,000 in 1992.

Mr. Walker: I thank my hon. Friend for his answer. Can he confirm—bearing in mind "Front Line First" and the interests of the air cadets—that an important aspect of recruitment and retention is flying and gliding experience? Will that be taken into account in "Front Line First", so that there is no reduction in the number of air cadets?

Mr. Hanley: I pay tribute to my hon. Friend, who devotes a great deal of time and effort to helping the air cadet organisation. A key objective of the organisation is to provide young people with flying experience, and there is no intention to lose sight of that. Every air cadet currently has an opportunity to fly, and will continue to be given that opportunity. I hope that my answer has helped to reassure my hon. Friend.

Mr. Tony Banks: I was a flight sergeant in the air training corps, and look how I ended up! Would not it be better to encourage our young people to join the Scouts, Guides, Cubs, Brownies or Woodcraft folk and to teach them about getting on with people and about peace and love rather than preparing them for war?

Mr. Hanley: The United Kingdom's cadet forces provide a useful service. In inner cities, they give excellent training to many young people who find it difficult to have any other structure. I have a sneaking suspicion that the hon. Gentleman's high-flying days were long ago.

Arms Sales

Mr. Alton: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence to how many countries Britain sold arms during 1993.

Mr. Aitken: In 1993, British defence equipment manufacturers received orders from 90 foreign countries.

Mr. Alton: Will the Minister reject and repudiate once and for all the curious notion that the morality of how a weapon is used has nothing to do with the salesman? Does he agree that it is high time that Britain published a blacklist of countries to which we will not sell arms because of their record of human rights abuses?

Mr. Aitken: The United Nations embargoes on countries that, for one reason or another, are considered unsuitable recipients of arms are published. As further evidence of transparency, we subscribe to the new UN register on conventional arms transfers, which makes apparent any breaches of the UN list. The export licensing system ensures that each and every arms transfer is considered on its merits, and human rights and the possible purposes for which arms may be used are taken into account. The hon. Gentleman's point has been understood.

Mr. Thurnham: Will my hon. Friend give every consideration to the export potential of the European FLA Hercules replacement? Does he agree that its potential export sales could be as high as £7 billion?

Mr. Aitken: A great deal of loud and persuasive lobbying has taken place in relation to the potential exports of that aircraft. At this stage, however, it is only a paper aircraft, so it would be impossible and unwise to predict the potential for exports. I hope that they will be high once the aircraft is built.

Mr. Donald Anderson: One country to which we have steadfastly refused to sell arms is Bosnia. By contrast, as the Minister wells knows, the United States House of Representatives has passed a binding resolution in favour of a unilateral lifting of the arms embargo and the setting aside of £200 million for the United States to purchase armaments for Bosnia. What will the Ministry of Defence, in co-operation with our European colleagues, do to speak loud to senior senators to try to ensure that the UNPROFOR mandate is not undermined?

Mr. Aitken: We have made our views known to the United States Administration and to Capitol Hill, but the United States Congress, like the House of Commons, is a sovereign legislature, and both must be respected.

Mr. John Marshall: I thank my hon. Friend for lifting the arms embargo on Israel, which will make it easier for the British arms export industry. Does not he think it strange that those who call for greater help for manufacturing industry are always willing to make snide and sniping comments about the record of our arms exporters?

Mr. Aitken: The Government welcome the considerable change in the political situation in the middle east as a result of the recent accords, which have made changes, such as the lifting of the arms embargo, possible. We welcome it and I am glad that my hon. Friend does so, too.

Defence Procurement, Europe

Mr. Hutton: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement about progress towards common European defence procurement.

Mr. Aitken: Progress towards a common system of European defence procurement has been slow, but we work closely with individual European partners on specific collaborative projects.

Mr. Hutton: I acknowledge the benefits of European defence collaboration in projects such as the common new generation frigate programme and the Eurofighter programme, but will the Minister make it his policy to ensure that any moves towards greater European defence procurement will not be at the expense of further erosion of our defence industrial base, especially the shipbuilding sector?

Mr. Aitken: I agree entirely with the hon. Gentleman that the first requirement for defence procurement decisions must be our national security and our national interests—and we will stick to that.

Rev. Martin Smyth: Does the Minister agree that some of us used to love playing with paper aircraft, and that when he referred to a paper plane earlier, he meant a plane on paper? Will he assure the House that no decision will be taken on replacing the transport until FLA has been properly evaluated?

Mr. Aitken: We are certainly receiving a great deal of information on possible plans for the future large aircraft, but we must bear in mind the fact that the replacement of our transport fleet—certainly the first tranche—will be necessary before the future large aircraft is likely to have come into existence. That may depend on whether we can choose the refurbishment option or a new-buy. Whatever happens, FLA will not be ready for the first tranche of our fleet replacement.

Oral Answers to Questions — PRIME MINISTER

Engagements

Mr. Robathan: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 21 June.

The Prime Minister (Mr. John Major): This morning, I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in the House, I shall be having further meetings later today.

Mr. Robathan: Is my right hon. Friend aware of the real concern throughout the country caused by the continuing reduction in our defence capabilities, as illustrated yesterday by the leak about the defence costs study? Can he reassure his hon. Friends that he will never allow the growth of expenditure on social security to undermine our national security?

The Prime Minister: I can reassure my hon. Friend that the "Front Line First" programme will do nothing to reduce the fighting effectiveness of our armed forces or our ability to undertake defence commitments. I assure him that our commitment to effective front-line forces remains undiminished. The purpose of the "Front Line First" study is to ensure that money spent on defence administration

and support is kept to a minimum. That is a sensible aim, and I have no doubt that my hon. Friend will join me in achieving it.

Mrs. Beckett: Will the Prime Minister confirm that a member of his staff attended a crucial meeting of the Railtrack board last weekend?

The Prime Minister: A member of my policy unit attended a meeting in Whitehall, at the invitation of the Department of Transport, in order to inform me. The negotiations are between Railtrack and the unions. As the right hon. Lady. raises the question, perhaps she will now take the opportunity, at the third time of asking, to condemn the strike.

Mrs. Beckett: rose—

Hon. Members: Answer.

Mrs. Beckett: rose—[Interruption.]

Madam Speaker: Order. The House will come to order.

Mrs. Beckett: I think that we can take that answer as a yes, so we now know that the Department of Transport interfered in the negotiations, although it said that it had not, and that the Prime Minister's office meddled in the negotiations, although it said that it would not. Does not it stand out a mile that the dispute would not be happening if the negotiations had not been sabotaged by the Government?

The Prime Minister: The right hon. Lady is being ludicrous. The policy unit attends meetings throughout Whitehall, with a watching brief. It takes no part in negotiations that, as the chairman of Railtrack has made clear, are between him and the unions. However much the right hon. Lady tries, she cannot hide the fact that she will not condemn a strike that puts hundreds of thousands of commuters at risk, when hundreds of thousands of other public service workers have settled for pay increases, far below 3 per cent., which can be afforded. As ever, she is the strikers' friend.

Mrs. Beckett: What is completely clear is that no one wants this strike—[Interruption.]—except, perhaps, Conservative Members—least of all rail staff and commuters. Is not it crystal clear that it is happening only because the Government interfered? Yet again, the Prime Minister has caused what he now condemns. Yet again, the Government are saying one thing and doing another. Is not that why nobody can believe a word they say?

The Prime Minister: This has happened because there is an 11 per cent. wage demand which, by implication, the right hon. Lady would accept. Even now, her condemnation is limply to say that nobody wants this strike; she will not condemn it. She would, presumably, end it by meeting the demand. She backs that extra spending. I remind her that last week, she criticised tax increases. A week later, she calls for more public spending. How would she pay for the settlement—by raising taxes, by increasing public expenditure? The hypocrisy in this case rests with the Opposition. The right hon. Lady still will not condemn the strike. To quote her, that is twice she has refused to answer on condemning the strike. Will she now condemn it, yes or no?

Mrs. Gillan: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 21 June.

The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the answer I gave some moments ago.

Mrs. Gillan: Is my right hon. Friend aware that more than 40 per cent. of those recently arrested as part of Operation Bumblebee were on bail? Does not that underline how wise our Government are in the Criminal Justice and Public Order Bill—[interruption.]

Madam Speaker: Order. The House must settle down.

Mrs. Gillan: It will not have escaped the House that the Opposition find law and order so funny. How wise the Government were to crack down on bail bandits in the Criminal Justice and Public Order Bill. As three out of five burglaries are committed by people who are under 21, perhaps the Opposition would care to explain why they oppose policies against juvenile offenders so consistently. Is not that proof that the Labour party is Fagin's friend?

The Prime Minister: As my hon. Friend has shown with the figures she has used, there is no doubt that far too many people have been abusing the right to bail. Once the Criminal Justice and Public Order Bill becomes law, a person who is charged with a serious offence committed on bail will lose the right to bail. That is entirely right. If that person is then convicted, the court can reflect the fact that the offence was committed while the person was on bail. Operation Bumblebee has been a huge success. It has shown that by targeting crime, one can bring it down. What is equally encouraging is that the last quarter's crime figures show crime down by 9 per cent.

Mr. Ashdown: Does not the atrocity in Loughinisland over the weekend prove that when it comes to evil, there is nothing to chose between the murderers on one side of the sectarian divide in Northern Ireland and the murderers on the other? I remind the Prime Minister, once again, that the gunmen thrive when a political vacuum exists. Will he confirm that he understands the importance, when he meets the Irish Prime Minister in Corfu on Friday, of regaining, again, the initiative for peace through political progress in Northern Ireland?

The Prime Minister: There is no doubt that the murder of six people in Loughinisland on Saturday evening was a vicious and depraved act of brutality. Whether it is so-called Loyalists murdering Catholics or the IRA murdering Loyalists, it is equally indefensible by any possible measure. The right hon. Gentleman is right to stress the need for political movement and political settlement. I am in constant contact both with the constitutional parties in Northern Ireland and with the Government of the Republic of Ireland. I will certainly discuss the matter further with the Taoiseach when we meet over the weekend.

Mr. Hicks: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the inherent reticence and tolerance of the people of Devon and Cornwall is becoming increasingly exasperated by the inability or refusal of the Government to do anything to alleviate the growing water charges in the area? Does my right hon. Friend recall that it was 12 months ago that he personally said that he would look at this situation? When can we expect some positive news on that front?

The Prime Minister: My hon. Friend will be aware that it is for the Director General of the Office of Water Services to determine—[Interruption.] Opposition Members would do well to wait. It is for the Director General of Ofwat to determine the new price limits and he is in the process of doing so. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has published advice on quality matters. That will assist the director general in setting new price limits. We are looking, as I have said, to see what can be done with requirements made under European Community directives to reduce the impact in the west country. We have already found and announced, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cornwall, South-East (Mr. Hicks) should have known, ways in which to hold down the cost of some of the directives. Other ways are still being examined.

Mr. Nigel Griffiths: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 21 June.

The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply I gave some moments ago.

Mr. Griffiths: Why does the Prime Minister permit water disconnections in England and Wales, but not in Scotland?

The Prime Minister: Is the hon. Gentleman asking for water disconnections in Scotland?

Mr. Cyril D. Townsend: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 21 June.

The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the answer I gave some moments ago.

Mr. Townsend: Does my right hon. Friend agree that since "Options for Change" was prepared, the world has become more turbulent and less certain? Bearing in mind the fact that the French, who have roughly similar international defence commitments, have recently agreed to up their defence budget, would my right hon. Friend be prepared to look at the planned defence cut of £1 billion in 1996?

The Prime Minister: As my hon. Friend will know, in cash, the French spend broadly the same as we do, although, of course, they have a conscript army in France as compared with the professional Army that we have in the United Kingdom. As I said earlier, through the "Front Line First" defence costs study, we aim to maximise the proportion of defence resources allocated to the front line. I believe that that is the right way in which to determine our defence expenditure, unlike the Opposition, who scream "cuts", but would halve defence expenditure and would, no doubt, if they had the opportunity, also scrap our nuclear capacity.

Mr. Bill Michie: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 21 June.

The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the answer I gave some moments ago.

Mr. Michie: Is the Prime Minister aware that, next week, on 30 June, a delegation of health workers and friends, supported by Sheffield Members of Parliament, will be protesting about the closure of the Royal Hallamshire hospital accident and emergency unit in Sheffield? As this is a matter of life and death, will the Prime Minister assure the House that he will not wash his


hands of that issue, but tell the quangos, which his Government have set up, to stop paying high salaries to bureaucrats and to pay for services for the people?

The Prime Minister: The hon. Gentleman knows of the increased resources that have gone into services for the people. I do not have to hand the details of the particular case that he has in mind, but I have no doubt that, now he has raised it, my right hon. Friend will examine it.

Mr. David Howell: Reverting to the horrific killings in Northern Ireland and bearing in mind that there has been some talk lately of a return to internment, does my right hon. Friend recognise, before considering that drastic solution, that there is an opportunity for a concerted and greatly enhanced security drive and for a strengthening of legal and intelligence resources applied against terrorism? If that is done on both sides of the border—in Dublin, and in Belfast and London—we have a chance of beating the terrorism, without which there will be no political solution.

The Prime Minister: As my right hon. Friend knows, the power of internment remains on the statute book, but would be used only in very special circumstances. Co-operation on security and intelligence matters has improved dramatically over the past few years It is a matter of constant discussion between the British Government and the Irish Government so that we can ensure that whatever further improvements can be made will be made and precisely for the reasons set out by my right hon. Friend.

Mr. Welsh: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 21 June.

The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave some moments ago.

Mr. Welsh: Is the Prime Minister aware that Scottish Tories are revolting? [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] Led by the Scottish Office Minister responsible for industry, they are scared that percentage levels of VAT on domestic fuel will soon be higher than Tory poll ratings in Scotland. Will the Prime Minister now listen to the voices speaking in his direction? Will the message to the Prime Minister from the revolting Tories meet with any success?

The Prime Minister: I am not sure that I see it as the hon. Gentleman does. As he is clearly concerned about the position in Scotland, I remind him that the figures that emerged yesterday in Scotland from Locate in Scotland, the inward investment bureau, show that Scotland attracted more inward investment in the last financial year than at any time since 1981. Ninety-five projects are planned, worth almost £600 million creating 7,700 jobs and safeguarding 3,000 others. That has happened under a Conservative Government in this country improving the quality of opportunity for people in Scotland, whatever gloss the hon. Member for Angus, East (Mr. Welsh) may care to put on it.

Clerk of the House (Retirement)

Madam Speaker: I have a brief statement to make. I have to inform the House that I have received the following letter from the Clerk of the House:
I am writing to confirm to you my decision to retire as Clerk of the House on 31st October of this year.
While not immune from the general reluctance to leave the House of Commons voluntarily, I feel that after 41 years' service, 17 as a Clerk at the Table and seven as Clerk of the House, it is now time to move on.
During my service there has been a constant need to adjust the House's procedures and patterns of work in response to increased demands, and to constitutional change. In addition, the House has taken control of its own finances and administration, through the House of Commons Commission.
I believe that the House staff at all levels have responded well to these demands, and I should like to express my personal gratitude to them for all they have done. In particular, I wish to say how much I have appreciated the support and friendship of successive Speakers, and of Members in all parts of the House. The House of Commons is one of the most resilient and effective Parliamentary Chambers in the world. It is a great honour to have been its principal servant.

Hon. Members: Hear, hear.

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Tony Newton): Madam Speaker, your announcement has been heard with very real regret, as was clear from the murmurs in the House, in every part of the House as it signals the departure of someone who has given outstanding service to the House as a whole.
Many will wish to pay tribute to that service when the time of Sir Clifford's retirement comes. However, in accordance with past custom, I suggest that that would be the appropriate time for our thanks to be more fully expressed.

BILL PRESENTED

SPORTS (DISCRIMINATION)

Mr. David Hinchliffe, supported by Mr. Ian McCartney, Mr. Gary Waller, Mrs. Elizabeth Peacock, Mr. Allan

Rogers, Mr. Terry Rooney, Mr. Neil Gerrard, Dr. Norman Godman, Ms Liz Lynne, Mr. Alan Williams, Ms Kate Hoey and Mr. Tom Pendry, presented a Bill to make it unlawful for any rule-making body for a sport to discriminate against persons who have participated, are participating or are expected to participate in any other lawful sport, and for connected purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 1 July, and to be printed. [Bill 129.]

Statutory Instruments, &c.

Madam Speaker: With permission, I shall put together the six motions relating to statutory instruments.

Motion made, and Question put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 101(3) (Standing Committees on Statutory Instruments, &c.)

AGRICULTURE

That the draft Pesticides (Maximum Residue Levels in Crops, Food and Feeding Stuffs) Regulations 1994 be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &c.

NORTHERN IRELAND

That the draft Betting and Lotteries (Northern Ireland) Order 1994 be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &c.

That the draft Agriculture (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Northern Ireland) Order 1994 be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &c.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT

That the draft Local Authorities (Charges for Land Searches) Regulations 1994 be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &c.

WEIGHTS AND MEASURES

That the draft Weights and Measures (Cosmetic Products) Order 1994 be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &c.

That the draft Weights and Measures (Intoxicating Liquor) (Amendment) Order 1994 be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &c.—[Mr. Conway.]

Question agreed to.

Street Disorder and Begging Law Reform

Mr. Peter Butler: I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend the Vagrancy Act 1824 and to create a new offence of intimidatory begging.
The Bill is aimed at a mischief which is growing—that of violence and disorder on our streets. The solution which the Bill would propose is both straightforward and urgently needed. I am pleased that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister identified the problem so accurately recently and defined it as aggressive begging.
There is a cancer eating away at our society—the fear of crime and the fear of becoming a victim of crime. We always assume that that relates only to burglaries, robberies and major crimes. That assumption is false; few people will actually witness a bank robbery. There is an even more destructive fear—the simple fear of disorder which arises in daily experience when people walk along a street to the shops, to school, to work or to visit friends. Increasingly, that experience is of a disorderly street, which is the source of distasteful and frightening experiences.
Our streets have changed in nature in far too many of our towns and cities, and they have become nasty places. They are no longer somewhere to dawdle and chat, enjoy the occasional sunshine, window shop and talk to neighbours. They now represent a gauntlet of fear to be run daily, especially by the more vulnerable members of our society. The right to walk safely in our streets is being taken away from our law-abiding citizens. I want to return that right to them.
Let me be clear: the problem that I am seeking to tackle is not begging but violence. Aggressive, frightening, violent and intimidatory begging would be made illegal and the police would have the power to arrest an offender immediately. I am not talking about people who are down on their luck asking for charity. My Bill would restore to them the basic human right of seeking help from others by repealing that section of the Vagrancy Act 1824.
I am talking about people who are destroying the community in the centres of our great universal and cathedral cities, our seaside and tourist resorts and our towns and cities up and down the land by terrorising decent people. Often organised in gangs, these people are not unfortunates deserving of sympathy but criminals calling out for condemnation.
The 1824 Act says:
Every person wandering abroad, or placing himself or herself in any public place…to beg or gather alms…shall be deemed an idle and disorderly person…and it shall be lawful for any justice of the peace to commit such offender…to the house of correction.
There have been times when I have considered that "house of correction" is another expression for where I am standing now. The Act does not create an arrestable offence of itself, and it is applicable only in a random and arbitrary way. It is an unfair and ineffectual piece of legislation. Apparently, it was necessary to control the wandering bands of veterans who had returned from the Napoleonic wars. I am reasonably confident that all of them are now dead.
When the legislation was debated in 1823–24, the main concern seemed to be that it went too far in liberalising the law. I refer to a debate on 10 February 1824—which,

Madam Speaker, neither you nor I will recall—in which it was said in column 112 of the Hansard Parliamentary Debate:
The object"—
of the Bill—
had been to mitigate the severity of the former vagrant act…Formerly, the magistrates had the power of sentencing to transportation for seven years; at present, they could not sentence to more than two years' imprisonment. Formerly, whipping could be inflicted by the order of one magistrate; now, it could not be inflicted, except by an order of a bench of magistrates at the quarter sessions.
That was a liberal approach indeed, even in those days. Surely we have matured as a society since those pre-Victorian days.
Begging has taken place in every society and in every age. The Opposition parties, devoid of anything else to say on the subject, attempted recently to suggest that begging was invented in 1979 and has existed only under this Conservative Government. It is only necessary to state that view clearly for it to be seen to be palpably absurd. I refer the Opposition parties to the Bible, which has many examples of the existence of beggars—long before the Conservatives took power. It is as pathetic to talk about that and take that view as it is to talk about being tough on crime and the causes of crime while voting to be soft on criminals.
More recently, the Public Order Act 1986 was brought in as a change to the Public Order Act 1936, but that does not cover the problem adequately either. Sections 4 and 5 of the 1986 Act make the use of threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour an offence in certain circumstances, but it applies only if it can be shown that the person either intends his behaviour to be threatening, or he is aware that it may be threatening. Even then, under section 5, a policeman cannot make an arrest unless the offender repeats his conduct after a warning from the officer. In other words, if he frightens someone, he cannot be arrested unless he does it again. That is simply no longer satisfactory.
I am not concerned with the intention or the awareness of the violent offender; I am concerned about the effect that it has on the innocent passer-by who has become the victim. That is the person whose rights I stand here today to seek to protect.
The Public Order Act 1986 was not intended to deal with aggressive and violent beggars and it does not do so satisfactorily. Intimidatory begging is directed at an individual and should be considered as both a public order issue and an offence against the person. It targets a citizen and applies fear to that person. All citizens, but especially the vulnerable—the elderly, youngsters and mothers with young children—are entitled to be protected.
If I were to be given leave to introduce the Bill, it would approach the problem in two ways. First, it would create a new offence of intimidatory begging, which would be committed when someone begging in a public place behaved in such a way as to intimidate a person of reasonable firmness so that he or she felt compelled to give. Examples would include physical touching or obstructing the person solicited, following that person, using directly obscene or abusive language or violent and threatening gestures, or harassment, consisting of persisting in begging after the person solicited had declined to give, or had given a sum that the beggar did not consider adequate, as was the case in many of the examples reported to me.
My descriptions may have sounded like simple words, but the actions are not merely frightening; they can be terrifying. Cases have been reported to me from all sorts of towns and cities throughout the land, involving all sorts of members of society. I was especially affected by the examples of such begging that were directed against the elderly. It also seems to be persistently directed at young mothers, often with toddlers or children in prams. It is not acceptable in Britain in 1994 for a mother with young children, or an elderly person, who declines to give to a beggar or gives an insufficient sum to be verbally assaulted with language that they are not accustomed to hear, or followed, only to receive a continuing harangue of foul and abusive language. We should act quickly to make it illegal and should not delay introducing a Bill to control such behaviour.
Examples have been reported to me from all parts of the country, but I need look no further than my hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs. Gillan), who was accosted by an aggressive and intimidatory beggar and pursued before she became a Member of this honourable House, when she was without the benefit of a parliamentary salary and unable to donate.

Mr. Derek Enright: She was a successful business woman.

Mr. Butler: She is a witness of probity, if the matter requires proof.
The Bill would criminalise violent begging, but, as I said, violence is my target, not begging. It follows that I want to repeal that part of the Vagrancy Act that criminalises what one might term traditional or polite begging, which is a basic human right. I want to criminalise violence, but decriminalise the unfortunates who find themselves in such a desperate position that they genuinely have to ask for charity. The Bill would restore some dignity to those people who are down on their luck by removing the stigma of criminality from their instinctive action in simply asking for help.
I hope that the two measures, taken together, will command the support of the House. Any hon. Member who opposes the Bill will have to explain why he or she wants to continue to make criminal the simple and time-honoured act of asking for charity, and to continue to allow violent disorder on our streets. The Bill would give our police what they do not have at present—a clear, concise and straightforward offence, with a power of arrest attached, which would enable them to remove some of the violence from our streets. Law-abiding citizens demand the protection of their right to use the streets of Britain without fear. We should meet that demand and do so now. I ask the House to give me leave to bring in this Bill.

Mr. Tony Banks: I agree with that part of the motion of the hon. Member for Milton Keynes, North-East (Mr. Butler) that would change the law regarding begging by amending the Vagrancy Act 1824, but I do not think that he needs to introduce a new offence of intimidatory begging. All the actions that he described are covered by existing law—for example, threatening

behaviour and behaviour likely to cause a breach of the peace. Touching people can be dealt with by using the offence of common assault.
We know what the hon. Gentleman is really talking about. Suddenly it has become the thing for Tories to pick a group of people or a very small problem, inflate it out of all proportion and use it as a smoke screen to cover their failure to deal with the many social problems afflicting this country.
The hon. Member for Milton Keynes, North-East mentioned the "cancer" that was eating away at our society. I will tell him some of those cancers: mass unemployment, growing homelessness, the enormous gap between rich and poor, which is greater than it has been for 100 years, and the trade gap, which has become a gulf judging by the figures announced today. The hon. Gentleman could have mentioned all those issues, but he has come up with the problem of intimidatory begging, taking his lead from his fairly useless Prime Minister, when he launched his Euro-campaign.

Mr. Jim Dowd: What does my hon. Friend mean, "fairly"?

Mr. Banks: I withdraw that remark, which was incorrect. I should have said that he was totally useless.
We know a bit about intimidatory begging and about money being demanded from us with menaces. That occurs usually when some overweight guy looking rather like an unmade double bed comes up and demands money with menaces. He says, "If you do not pay, you will end up either shivering in your home or you will go to gaol." We know all about that, because that is what the Chancellor of the Exchequer does every year.
That is intimidatory begging. The ordinary people of this country are told to put their hands in their pockets or purses and hand over large amounts of dosh; if not, the Government will go for them. That is intimidatory begging which is covering up the total economic incompetence of the Government and the failure of their policies. I can tell the House one thing: one might be able to walk away from a beggar, but one cannot walk away from a pot-bellied old soak called the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Madam Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is now going over the top, and he realises that. The quality of his arguments is being reduced by his comments, and I hope that he will now contain himself.

Mr. Banks: I have looked at early-day motion 1247 on intimidatory begging put down by the hon. Member for Milton Keynes, North-East in which he congratulates the Daily Express on exposing what he said was a case of somebody making a large amount of money from begging on the streets.
What has the hon. Gentleman ever done to expose the causes of begging on the streets of London or any other city? When has he ever talked about the real reason why people beg on the streets? There are thousands of people who are sleeping homeless on the streets of London at the moment.
The hon. Gentleman said that begging did not start in 1979. Madam Speaker, you see what goes on in the streets of London, and we all know. We have never seen so many beggars on the streets of London as there have been since 1979. It is one of our great growth industries, and the


causes are fairly obvious to anyone who wants to see them—mass unemployment caused by the Government's economic policies, particularly among young people.
The Prime Minister is responsible by altering social security regulations with regard to 16 and 17-year-olds. People are on the streets who have been turned out of long-stay mental institutions and who are suffering from alcoholism. It is estimated that 25 per cent. of people on the streets have been discharged from the armed services. The hon. Member for Milton Keynes, North-East said that the Vagrancy Act 1824 related to the Napoleonic wars, and that there is no one left alive from those wars—that was observant—but the fact is that 25 per cent. of people sleeping rough on the streets have been discharged from the armed services.
Homelessness is another great cause of begging and of people sleeping out on the street. Shelter estimates that 1.7 million people could be considered homeless in this country. What has happened since 1979? Homelessness has trebled in this country, and the number of people in poverty has doubled since 1979.
The Duke of Edinburgh said that there is no such thing as absolute poverty; but he is not the best person to talk about poverty and about people in need. Indeed, he might follow the example of Princess Diana who, I noticed, went the other day with her son to the Passage night shelter in Westminster on the first day of Royal Ascot. While the Tories and all of their friends were at Royal Ascot, someone at least was going out to see what was happening on the streets of London.
The Prime Minister should come out of No. 10 Downing street and walk down to the Embankment, into the Strand and into Red Lion square and see the casualties of the economic and social incompetence and the injustices of the Government. That is the sort of thing that the hon. Member for Milton Keynes, North-East should have been talking about, and not trying to raise yet another spurious argument about an object for his hatred and distaste.
It is typical of this bankrupt Government that they blame the electorate for failing the Government. They have created social and economic chaos, poverty and disruption in this country, and now they seek to blame the victims. There is no need for this proposal today. Existing laws already cover everything that the hon. Gentleman said. In those circumstances, I beg leave to oppose the motion.

Question put, pursuant to Standing Order No. 19 (Motions for leave to bring in Bills and nomination of Select Committees at commencement of public business):—

The House divided: Ayes 76, Noes 148.

Division No. 268]
[3.50 pm


AYES


Ainsworth, Peter (East Surrey)
Deva, Nirj Joseph


Ashby, David
Dickens, Geoffrey


Aspinwall, Jack
Duncan, Alan


Banks, Matthew (Southport)
Dunn, Bob


Bendall, Vivian
Elletson, Harold


Beresford, Sir Paul
Evans, David (Welwyn Hatfield)


Boyson, Rt Hon Sir Rhodes
Fabricant, Michael


Brazier, Julian
Fenner, Dame Peggy


Brown, M. (Brigg & Cl'thorpes)
Fox, Sir Marcus (Shipley)


Butcher, John
Gale, Roger


Butler, Peter
Gallie, Phil


Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)
Gillan, Cheryl


Coe, Sebastian
Gorman, Mrs Teresa


Congdon, David
Grant, Sir A. (Cambs SW)


Coombs, Anthony (Wyre For'st)
Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth, N)


Couchman, James
Hannam, Sir John


Day, Stephen
Hargreaves, Andrew





Harris, David
Shersby, Michael


Hawkins, Nick
Sims, Roger


Hawksley, Warren
Skeet, Sir Trevor


Hill, James(Southampton Test)
Speed, Sir Keith


Horam, John
Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)


Jackson, Robert (Wantage)
Spink, Dr Robert


Jenkin, Bernard
Stephen, Michael


Jopling, Rt Hon Michael
Sweeney, Walter


Kellett-Bowman, Dame Elaine
Taylor, Sir Teddy (Southend, E)


King, Rt Hon Tom
Thomason, Roy


Lawrence, Sir Ivan
Thompson, Sir Donald (C'er V)


Lidington, David
Townend, John (Bridlington)


Maitland, Lady Olga
Viggers, Peter


Mitchell, Sir David (Hants NW)
Walker, Bill (N Tayside)


Moate, Sir Roger
Waterson, Nigel



Montgomery, Sir Fergus
Watts, John


Neubert, Sir Michael
Whitney, Ray


Onslow, Rt Hon Sir Cranley
Whittingdale, John


Pawsey, James
Wilkinson, John


Porter, David (Waveney)



Robathan, Andrew
Tellers for the Ayes:


Roe, Mrs Marion (Broxbourne)
Mr. John Sykes and


Shaw, David (Dover)
Mr. Jonathan Evans.


NOES


Abbott, Ms Diane
Harman, Ms Harriet


Ainger, Nick
Henderson, Doug


Ainsworth, Robert (Cov'try NE)
Heppell, John


Allen, Graham
Hill, Keith (Streatham)


Anderson, Ms Janet (Ros'dale)
Hinchliffe, David


Ashton, Joe
Hodge, Margaret


Austin-Walker, John
Home Robertson, John


Banks, Tony (Newham NW)
Hoon, Geoffrey


Barnes, Harry
Howarth, George (Knowsley N)


Barron, Kevin
Howells, Dr. Kim (Pontypridd)


Bayley, Hugh
Hoyle, Doug


Beith, Rt Hon A. J.

Hughes, Kevin (Doncaster N)


Benn, Rt Hon Tony
Hutton, John


Benton, Joe
Illsley, Eric


Betts, Clive
Jackson, Helen (Shef'ld, H)



Blunkett, David
Jones, Barry (Alyn and D'side)


Boateng, Paul
Jones, Lynne (B'ham S O)


Bottomley, Peter (Eltham)
Jones, Nigel (Cheltenham)


Bradley, Keith
Jowell, Tessa


Burden, Richard
Keen, Alan


Byers, Stephen
Kennedy, Jane (Lpool Brdgn)


Callaghan, Jim
Khabra, Piara S.


Campbell, Mrs Anne (C'bridge)
Lewis, Terry


Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)
Livingstone, Ken


Campbell, Ronnie (Blyth V)
Llwyd, Elfyn


Carlile, Alexander (Montgomry)
Loyden, Eddie


Chisholm, Malcolm
McAllion, John


Clarke, Tom (Monklands W)
McAvoy, Thomas


Cousins, Jim
Mackinlay, Andrew


Cummings, John
McNamara, Kevin


Cunningham, Jim (Covy SE)
MacShane, Denis


Dalyell, Tam
McWilliam, John



Darling, Alistair
Madden, Max


Davidson, Ian
Mahon, Alice


Davies, Bryan (Oldham C'tral)
Marshall, David (Shettleston)


Davies, Ron (Caerphilly)
Marshall, Jim (Leicester, S)


Davis, Terry (B'ham, H'dge H'l)
Martin, Michael J. (Springburn)


Dixon, Don
Meacher, Michael


Enright, Derek
Meale, Alan


Etherington, Bill
Michael, Alun


Ewing, Mrs Margaret
Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley)


Flynn, Paul
Milburn, Alan


Foster, Rt Hon Derek
Miller, Andrew


Fyfe, Maria
Morley, Elliot


Gapes, Mike
Morris, Rt Hon A. (Wy'nshawe)


Gerrard, Neil
Mowlam, Marjorie


Godman, Dr Norman A.
Mullin, Chris


Gordon, Mildred
Murphy, Paul


Grant, Bernie (Tottenham)
Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon


Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)
O'Brien, William (Normanton)


Grocott, Bruce
O'Hara, Edward


Gunnell, John
Olner, William


Hall, Mike
O'Neill, Martin


Hanson, David
Patchett, Terry


Hardy, Peter
Pike, Peter L.






Pope, Greg
Squire, Rachel (Dunfermline W)


Powell, Ray (Ogmore)
Steel, Rt Hon Sir David


Prentice, Ms Bridget (Lew'm E)
Strang, Dr. Gavin


Primarolo, Dawn
Sutcliffe, Gerry


Quin, Ms Joyce
Taylor, Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)


Randall, Stuart
Taylor, Matthew (Truro)


Redmond, Martin
Timms, Stephen



Roche, Mrs. Barbara
Tipping, Paddy


Rooker, Jeff
Turner, Dennis


Rooney, Terry
Walker, Rt Hon Sir Harold


Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)
Walley, Joan


Ruddock, Joan
Wareing, Robert N


Salmond, Alex
Wicks, Malcolm


Sedgemore, Brian
Williams, Rt Hon Alan (Sw'n W)


Sheerman, Barry
Williams, Alan W (Carmarthen)


Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert
Winnick, David


Simpson, Alan



Skinner, Dennis
Tellers for the Noes:



Smith, Andrew (Oxford E)
Mr. Jim Dowd and


Smith, C. (Isl'ton S & F'sbury)
Mr. Jeremy Corbyn.


Smith, Llew (Blaenau Gwent)

Question accordingly negatived.

Orders of the Day — Social Security (Incapacity for Work) Bill

Lords amendments considered.

Clause 2

INCAPACITY BENEFIT: RATE

Lords amendment: No. 1, in page 2, line 30, leave out from beginning to ("is") in line 32 and insert—
("(2) Subject to the following provisions of this section, the weekly rate of short-term incapacity benefit")

The Minister for Social Security and Disabled People (Mr. Nicholas Scott): I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.

Madam Speaker: With this it will be convenient to take Lords amendments Nos. 2 and 3, Lords amendment No. 4, Government amendments (a) and (b) thereto, and Lords amendments Nos. 5, 6, 11 and 12.

Mr. Scott: During the passage of the Bill there has been a genuine and widespread anxiety about the level of short-term incapacity benefit for three vulnerable groups—the terminally ill, people with severe disabilities and people with children. The Government have given careful consideration to the position of all three of those groups and as a result these amendments make several important changes to the rates of incapacity benefit.
We remain convinced that 52 weeks is an appropriate qualifying period for the highest rate of benefit. We recognise that those people who proposed the disability living allowance element of Lords amendment No. 4 have been motivated by the desire to give extra help to the most severely disabled people. Incapacity benefit is an income-related benefit and not designed to meet the extra costs of disability. However, the Government have reflected on the views that have been expressed about that group and I am pleased to accept that the long-term, highest rate of incapacity benefit should be brought forward to the 29th week of incapacity for claimants receiving the highest rate care component of disability living allowance.
I am proposing two minor, technical amendments to amendment No. 4 to clarify that policy intention. The first removes redundant words and the second replaces "higher" with "highest", which is the correct legal definition of the maximum rate of DLA care component.
Following helpful discussions in the Commons Standing Committee, my noble Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State announced our intention to bring forward the long-term rate of incapacity benefit for claimants who are terminally ill to the 29th week of incapacity for work, and amendments Nos. 1 to 4 make that provision.
Anxieties have also been expressed about the position of children under the new benefit. Amendments were passed in another place which bring forward payment of child dependency increases to the 29th week of incapacity. I have reconsidered provision for children and agree that, in those limited circumstances, child dependency increases


should also be paid from the 29th week. For a family with two children, amendments Nos. 5 and 6 will mean nearly £500 extra during the first year of incapacity.
I hope that the amendments will be widely welcomed.

Mr. Keith Bradley: We welcome the fact that the Government have accepted the Lords amendments. It is a great tribute to the all-party work that was undertaken in the other place that the amendments were successfully concluded. I pay tribute to the work undertaken in the other place. We must also reflect on the fact that the Labour party, in Committee and during the Bill's other stages, strongly pressed the issues raised in the amendments. I welcome the fact that the Government have now accepted the need to introduce and support the measures, particularly the higher rate of disability living allowance and the addition for children.
It would be remiss of me not to make some general points about the context in which the Lords amendments were accepted by the Government. I shall remind the House of the Bill's purpose. As we know, it comes into effect in April 1995 and will have two general effects on people who are sick or disabled in future. First, it will reduce the number eligible for benefit through the introduction of a more stringent test of incapacity and the abolition of access to benefit for people with industrial injuries. When people have got through the hoop of the new, stringent medical test, those entitled to the benefit will have it paid at a lower rate than the current invalidity benefit and will have to wait a full year before reaching maximum entitlement to the new benefit.
It is important to view the amendments from the other place in the context of the overall changes and level of benefit that will be paid to sick and disabled people. The Lords amendments have been introduced against a background of deteriorating living standards for disabled people, including the imposition of value added tax on fuel without adequate compensation for disabled people for the cost of that additional fuel bill, and the abolition of vehicle excise duty for disabled passengers.
To date, only one fifth of the independent living fund—the mechanism to help disabled people—has been spent. We have to view the attack on the living standards of disabled people in that context. It would be wrong of me not to flag up yet again the general attack on the rights of disabled people that took place when the Government did not accept the private Member's Bill on anti-discrimination.
The amendments are clearly to be welcomed, but they must be seen in the context of the overall lower level of benefit. There are three main provisions to reduce the level of benefit payable to claimants after April 1995. I do not want there to be any misunderstanding at a later stage, particularly on the part of Conservative Members, on exactly what effect the Bill will have on those claimants who successfully negotiate the new medical text.
The provisions will reduce the level of benefit because of the changes to the additional pension—the extra amount on top of the basic benefit payable on national insurance contributions paid between 1978 and 1990. It is payable to 85 per cent. of invalidity benefit payments and is worth, on average, £13.40 per claimant. That was stated in Hansard on 7 February 1994 at column 210. It is being abolished for new claimants and frozen for people already on invalidity benefit, who are covered by transitional protection. That

abolition is part of the package of cuts that the Government are making for disabled people who need the benefit to protect their living standards.
Despite the Government's arguments that the additional pension duplicates occupational pensions and other sources, official statistics show that fewer than four in 10 invalidity benefit claimants have occupational pensions, whereas more than eight in 10 receive an additional pension. Research by groups such as Disability Alliance and the Disablement Income Group shows that the people most likely to need invalidity benefit are those least likely to have access to payments from an employer or a private insurance company.
It is important to pay tribute to all the disability groups and organisations which have worked so assiduously to consider carefully all the implications of the benefit and the tremendous amount of work they have put in to ensure that hon. Members on both sides of the House and all parties are well informed about the implications of the legislation, so yet again there can be no claim of misunderstanding when the legislation becomes law in April 1995.
The second significant change to the rate of benefits covered by the group of amendments is the adult dependants' allowances. These will be restricted to non-working partners who are looking after children or are aged over 60. Few claimants now receive an allowance under these circumstances—only 170,000, or fewer than 12 per cent. of claimants. The figures are at column 804 of Hansard for 20 January 1994.
Those particularly affected by the loss of the addition are likely to be older claimants in their fifties whose children have left home. It has been estimated as £15 million in 1995–96 and £40 million in 1996–97—a very small sum of money.
An amendment to reintroduce the adult addition to the benefit was introduced in the other place with all-party support and lost by only three votes. Even at this late stage, I urge the Government to reconsider that element of the benefit to see whether there is any way in which the adult addition can be brought back, in the same way as the children's allowance has, to ensure that the particular group of people who require the benefit are properly protected. The Government won the vote by a very small margin in the other place and because of the closeness and the all-party nature of the support for the amendment it is essential that the Government should look at it again.
The third element that I wish to highlight is the age allowances. The age banding will be altered so that people over 45 will no longer receive any additional help. At present, an increase in benefit is payable up to age 60 for men and 55 for women. Despite amendments to pay additions for people up to age 60, provisions for age allowances in the Bill remain intact. Again, this represents a loss of £3.80 a week for the over-45s and is part of the overall package of cuts that the Government are making through these measures to the rate of entitlement for people who have successfully negotiated the medical test.
The Bill contains a fundamental redefinition of long-term incapacity from 28 weeks to 52 weeks. No explanation is given for the change, apart from the well-worn phrase that 52 weeks is a more reasonable definition. The real reason may be more that it will save the Government significant sums of money than any rational understanding or real evidence of what long-term incapacity actually means.
As was pointed out in the other place, with the test of incapacity taking place after 28 weeks, someone will be considered incapable of all work and yet will have to wait another 24 weeks before full payment is payable. As entitlement to the highest basic rate of benefit and other increases is triggered by the start of a long-term incapacity, delaying full benefit until after a year of incapacity represents the hardest cut of all.
The targeting of people who have passed the test and are therefore considered genuine—according to the Government's definition—followed by a delay in full entitlement has been the subject of numerous amendments in both Houses, and of numerous protracted, detailed debates. An all-party amendment to reinstate long-term incapacity benefit at 28 weeks was also narrowly lost in the other place, by a mere two votes. I urge the Government to reflect again on the closeness of that result, and to consider reinstating the full rate at 28 weeks rather than delaying payment until 52 weeks have elapsed.
4.15 pm
The elements that will be delayed until after a year are the basic rate of benefit, which means a loss of £5.10 per week per claimant between weeks 29 and 52; the full rate of adult dependency increases, which means a loss of £7.60 per week per claimant with a qualifying partner for weeks 29 to 52; and age allowances, which means a loss of £12.50 per week for those under 65 and of £6.10 per week for those aged 35 to 45. Those are significant amounts. Conservative Members—who will receive a flood of letters and visitors to their surgeries, asking why cuts have been made in benefit for those who have passed the medical test—should bear in mind the fact that the Opposition have made the consequences of the legislation absolutely clear: they cannot give the excuse that they did not know or understand its implications.
We welcome the three amendments dealing with disability living allowance, the terminally ill and children's additions. Two amendments have not been selected and I therefore do not intend to speak about them; but we could have had an interesting debate on entitling not only the terminally ill and those on the higher rate of DLA, but those who have been diagnosed to be suffering from a prescribed disease or disability, to benefit at 28 weeks—a system of "fast-tracking".
I am sorry that we have not been able to debate the Lords amendment that would complete the task of awarding benefit at 28 weeks rather than 52 to groups which will be exempt from the functional element of the new incapacity test. We wanted to bring them into line; although that clearly will not be possible, I urge the Minister to consider that last element again.
The terminally ill are, as it were, on the outside lane of a three-lane motorway, moving towards the 28 weeks on the fast track. The Government have now accepted the higher care component for DLA in the centre lane, but the inside lane should also keep pace with the traffic flow: that is, those with prescribed diseases should be included on the fast track. They are not only on the same motorway, but are travelling only for what could be described as the extra 24 "miles".
I believe that the cost of fast-tracking those people to 28 weeks so that they need not wait for 52 would be extremely small and that it would be far neater for the legislation to

bring all three components together on the fast track rather than retaining the anomaly of a group being left outside it, which is likely to lead to much confusion, concern and anger among those who have been exempted from the functional test but are not being allowed the full rate of benefit until 52 weeks have passed. I urge the Minister, therefore, to consider the amendments on those matters, although I accept that we shall not debate or vote on them today.
The Government accept the Lords amendments, which result from the excellent work that was undertaken in the other place, but I urge the Minister to consider not only the overall impact that the Bill will have on disabled people but the smaller issues that I identified to see whether, when the regulations are introduced, we can make a little more progress. I know that he is constrained by the pressures that the Treasury has placed on the Department of Social Security, but that is not a good enough reason for not protecting disabled people and ensuring that their income does not suffer as a result of the Bill.
We welcome the changes and we commend the work that the other place undertook in support of the changes.

Mr. Alan Howarth: I am glad that the Government intend to accept the purposes of the amendments passed in another place with all-party support. They will help the most severely disabled people and households of the sick and disabled where there are children. The Government's response has been decent and in keeping with the moral concern and seriousness with which Ministers consistently approach their responsibility in social policy.
Some people criticise my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for confronting us with the realities of what is happening in our society and with the choices that we have to make, but that is his duty. He performs it courageously, and he is right to insist that we think carefully about the implications of where our instincts and impulses lead us. He has tempered rigour here, however, with flexible common sense, which is characteristic and welcome.
An amendment was debated in the House of Lords that would have provided that benefit should be payable after 28 weeks instead of a year to adult dependants, notably spouses as well as children. In circumstances of invalidity, spouses and partners are carers, and we should do more to support them, but the Government were unable to accept that amendment.
Another more ambitious, more costly but justified amendment would have provided that incapacity benefit would be paid at the long-term rate to all claimants who passed the new medical test after 28 weeks instead of after a year. That too was found unacceptable. I cannot understand the case for requiring claimants to undergo a stringent medical test at six months and then to wait 12 months for incapacity benefit. If need is demonstrated, it should be met. The only argument for making them wait—often, I fear, in indigence—is one of economy, but this is the wrong area in which to make economies.
It is good that the Government accept these amendments and provide fast tracking for the terminally ill, and for those on the higher rate component of disability living allowance—the most severely disabled people—to go on to the long-term rate of incapacity benefit after 28 weeks. Happily, they will not be required to undergo the new medical test.
The new medical test of incapacity is central to the Bill and to a number of the amendments. Debate in both Houses has not resulted in much meeting of minds or in any apparent accommodation by the Government of the powerful criticisms that have been made.
The very concept of an objective medical test of incapacity is unsustainable. I said that on Second Reading, and I have not changed my view. The capacity of a person for work is not susceptible to the kind of objective assessment that the Government hope will be made. We are talking about the interaction of the infinite variety of people with the infinite variety of their circumstances. An individual's medical, intellectual, educational, familial, social and economic circumstances will all have an important bearing on his or her capacity to do a particular job. Generally, one cannot say that someone is either absolutely capable, or absolutely incapable, of work.
I understand why the Government want objectivity, and why they want to get away from subjectivity and discretion. They wanted to do so with child support, as well as with invalidity benefit. Not only Treasury Ministers but my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Security, who always seeks to be far-sighted and responsible in that field—he controls the largest budget in Whitehall, so that is just as well—fear, with some justification, that discretion will lead to loss of control over expenditure. However, economic discipline should serve our social objectives, not the other way around.
The objectivity that the Government seek in this context is a chimera, whose pursuit distances us from the responsibility that we should not evade, and in the end cannot evade, to make judgments about personal arid social needs in the variety of their manifestations, and to decide collectively how to respond to them.
Among the needs to which we should address ourselves are those of men in middle age who can no longer find opportunities in the labour market. As I explained on Second Reading, invalidity benefit has played a crucial part in dealing with those needs. The amendment to allow benefit to be paid earlier for such men's children will be helpful to a number of them.
Dr. Jonathan Wadsworth of the London School of Economics has studied what is happening to those people. The number of men between 35 and 65 years old newly categorised as economically inactive—that is defined as not looking, and not available, for work—grew by 110,000 between the winter of 1992 and the winter of 1993, while unemployment overall was falling. Many of those unemployed men have children, and Lords amendments Nos. 5 and 6 are of great relevance to that category.
We should be even more especially concerned for the sub-set within that category, consisting of men in the age group 55 to 64—although, in concentrating on men, I do not mean to decry the needs of women.
In that cohort of men, unemployment rose by 23 per cent. between 1986 and 1993, while inactivity rose by 20 per cent. Meanwhile, a greater number of new claimants of invalidity benefit were unemployed, and claimants were staying on invalidity benefit for longer, often much longer. There are strong correlations between areas of high unemployment and areas of long-term sickness, and also between relatively low levels of skills and long-term sickness. Invalidity benefit has been providing succour for many long-term unemployed people, and for many who have come to despair of the possibility of being employed.
Some of my hon. Friends say that there must be abuse, and that we cannot possibly afford that racket, so the Government are right drastically to reduce eligibility for the new incapacity benefit. To them, and to my right hon. Friends, I say two things. First, as I said on Second Reading, the DSS's own research, as well as other analyses available, have failed to demonstrate significant abuse.
Secondly, there remains a problem that demands a constructive response from us. There is a significant and rising number of unemployed people who have no good prospects in the labour market, who had low earnings when they were in work, and who have few savings and exiguous pension prospects. I submit that those people have a legitimate claim on us. They are the casualties of an economic restructuring which could not have been avoided, and which the Government have strongly endorsed and promoted.
With amendments Nos. 5 and 6, the Government have helped those people in relation to their children, but beyond that the Government's response to their needs so far, as I understand it, is to say that, in future, it will be much harder for them to qualify for incapacity benefit, and that, furthermore, they will have to seek work with extra intensity in a labour market that is bitterly inhospitable to them, or they will not be eligible for the job seeker's allowance. Whatever the merits of incapacity benefit and the job seeker's allowance, they will not be a sufficient response on the part of society to this clearly identifiable social need. I suggest that there is food for thought for all the parties here.
I have detained the House longer than may be customary or convenient on Lords amendments, particularly when the Government are showing some generosity in their response to them. I offer the excuse that, in this House and among the wider public, debate on this massively important measure, through which the Government expect to save £1.5 billion a year, has been perfunctory. We should be grateful to the other place, where there were admirable debates. Not for the first time, the peers showed themselves to be closer to the people than the Commons was.

Dr. Norman A. Godman: The hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Howarth) referred to the Government's generosity. I hope that I receive a generous response to a number of my concerns about the Bill. I remind the Minister that, in the excellent notes provided by his Department, page 2 of the explanatory memorandum on the Lords amendments mentions claimants who are over pension age. I seek assurances from the Minister. He may not be able to give them to me now, but I hope that, by way of a signal, non-verbal or otherwise, he will promise to write to me. My questions relate directly to the Lords amendments.
I am concerned about women aged 60 to 65 who have had their invalidity benefit suspended until the European Court of Justice offers an opinion on the referral made by the Department and by counsel representing Mrs. Rose Graham at the English Court of Appeal. That referral was made four or five months ago. Given the backlog of work that the 13 judges in Luxembourg face, a decision may not be reached for another 18 months, yet the measure will come into effect next year.
Can the Minister assure me that the thousands of women who are directly affected by the Graham case—I refer here to the decision made by Commissioner Skinner three years ago, involving Mrs. Graham of Birkenhead—will not have to face further hurdles even though a decision will not be made by the European Court of Justice for at least 18 months?
There are several hundred such women in my constituency alone, and in Northern Ireland more than 3,000 such women have made applications for the benefit to be paid to them. I reckon that about 80,000 women must be trapped by the lengthy process gone through by the European Court of Justice in reaching an opinion on such referrals. I do not criticise the court too harshly; it has an enormous work load. I visited the court last year and spoke to some of the judges. I am fairly confident that I am correct when I say that an opinion will not be offered on Mrs. Graham's case in particular and on the 80,000 women generally for at least another 18 months.
I seek an assurance from the Minister. I sincerely hope that the women will not have to undergo a new medical test. It is not their fault that they are suffering in this way. Commissioner Skinner decreed that the Government were contravening a European directive passed as long ago as 1979—or was it 1977? I do not have notes to hand. Those women should be paid that benefit until the Supreme Court makes its decision. I say that it is its opinion, but, in every sense of the word, it will make a judgment on Commissioner Skinner's decision, and the referral by the Department of Social Security and Mrs. Graham's counsel. I seek an assurance that there will be no new medical test.
In the interim period—it is not an interim period for the women concerned, many of whom are suffering hardship—I would also like to know about the guidelines issued to local Benefits Agency offices in respect of appeals made on the basis of hardship. If the Minister cannot answer me now, would he write to me?
Lord Henley told me in a letter some 18 months ago that a woman caught up in those circumstances may appeal to have her invalidity benefit restored on the basis of the hardship that she is suffering. I know from a written answer that some 770 women have been paid on the basis of hardship, but some offices—perhaps one of them is the office in Greenock—have an over-harsh list of criteria defining hardship.
Will the Minister and his officials look again at what those criteria mean? What is their definition of hardship? We are talking about 80,000 women who, through no fault of their own, are being made to suffer because the Government are challenging that Commissioner's decision all the way to Luxembourg. The Government are at fault in not paying invalidity benefit to women aged 60 to 65. Let us not forget that it is a contributory benefit, not a non-contributory benefit.
In returning to the idea of generosity, the Government should be paying those women invalidity benefit until the day that the European Court of Justice offers the English Court of Appeal its opinion. I am fairly confident that those 13 judges—by then, there may be 14, 15 or 16 judges in that Supreme European Court—will say that Commissioner Skinner was right and that the Government were wrong.
I am therefore seeking assurances about those women, but, above all, the Minister should show some generosity of spirit by ensuring that they are paid. If not, I ask him to reconsider the criteria that his officials in the Benefits Agency local offices use to define hardship. Those criteria are over-harsh, and they penalise women on very low incomes.

Mr. Scott: It would be best if I wrote to the hon. Member for Greenock and Port Glasgow (Dr. Godman) to cover the various points that he has set out. He will understand that I am especially sensitive to any danger of misleading the House in response to an intervention. However, I can tell him at the moment—I may want to embellish the explanation in the letter to him—that the case of a person whose benefit has been suspended pending the Graham case and who makes representation to the Secretary of State in cases of hardship will be considered sympathetically.
A number of the women concerned have had the reinstatement of their benefit in those circumstances. Bearing in mind that the points raised by the hon. Gentleman are strictly outside the scope of our discussions, it would be better if I sent him a considered response on those matters.
The fact that a number of the hon. Gentleman's points are outside the scope of the Lords amendments may be characteristic of other speeches—if I may say so without in any way criticising your control of the House, Mr. Deputy Speaker. As a result of my response to discussions in another place and to representations which were made during the Commons consideration earlier, I hope that it has been possible for those who have spoken to welcome the changes which flow from the amendments. I recognise that there will always be pressure for the Government to go further and faster than they feel possible.
The hon. Member for Manchester, Withington (Mr. Bradley) referred to additional pensions. It is worth reminding the hon. Gentleman that, if we had not tackled the issue of additional pensions in the Bill, by the end of the century we would be talking about a cost to the taxpayer of additional pensions of £2 billion a year. Even the hon. Member for Glasgow, Garscadden (Mr. Dewar) said that he thought that the existence of additional pensions in today's social security system was, to use his phrase, a bit of an anomaly. I certainly share that view.
Points were also made about the adult dependency increase. It is worth making it clear that the adult dependency increase is not being abolished. It is being focused on those groups which are unlikely to be economically active and are therefore in the greatest need. It is not right that ADIs, which were introduced in 1948, should remain for ever untouched by the social changes that have occurred in the intervening period. I believe that our judgment about that matter is correct.
My hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Howarth) referred to exemption from medical tests. That subject stretches the boundaries of our discussion on Lords amendment No. 1. However, the medical test is designed for one purpose, and that is to decide whether people can be passported on to the benefit. While people who have experienced certain conditions can be exempted from the medical test, it is a completely different proposition to say that if someone has a particular medical condition, the severity of that condition should be regarded as a passport to incapacity benefit.
Passporting makes sense where a condition is specific and easily recognised. However, it is not a measure, in any sense of the word, of the severity of a condition. In using the higher rate of DLA as the passport to the benefit, we are seeking to limit and to focus that particular arrangement on the most severely handicapped.
I hope that, with that brief response to the points that have been raised, I can welcome the guarded and somewhat limited welcome which has been given to this group of amendments. I certainly believe that they will be welcomed outside the House.

Question put and agreed to.

Lords amendments Nos. 2 and 3 agreed to.

Lords amendment: No. 4, in page 3, line 5, at end insert—
("(3A) In the case of a person who has been entitled to short-term incapacity benefit for 196 days or more in any period of incapacity for work and is terminally ill, or, if he is in receipt of the higher rate of the care component of disability living allowance, the weekly rate of short-term incapacity benefit payable, if greater than the rate otherwise payable to him under subsection (2) or (3) above, shall be equal to the rate at which long-term incapacity benefit under section 30A above would be payable to him if he were entitled to it.
For the purposes of this subsection a person is terminally ill if he suffers from a progressive disease and his death in consequence of that disease can reasonably be expected within 6 months.
(3B) References to short-term incapacity benefit at the higher rate shall be construed as including short-term incapacity benefit payable to any person who has been entitled to that benefit for 196 days or more in a period of incapacity for work, notwithstanding that the rate of benefit is determined in accordance with subsection (3) or (3A) above.")

Amendments made to the Lords amendment: (a), in line 4, after "and" insert "—(a)"
(b), in line 4, leave out from "or" to "rate" and insert "(b) he is entitled to the highest"—[Mr. Scott.]

Lords amendment No. 4, as amended, agreed to.

Subsequent Lords amendments agreed to.

Clause 3

INCAPACITY BENEFIT: SUPPLEMENTARY PROVISIONS.

Lords amendment: No. 7, in page 5, line 9, leave out ("in such cases as may be prescribed,")

Mr. Scott: I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Geoffrey Lofthouse): With this it will be convenient to take Lords Amendments Nos. 8, 10, 18, 24, 25, 27, 30, 32, 44 to 46, 66 to 71 and 77 to 80.

Mr. Scott: These are all technical amendments and it would be for the convenience of the House if I moved them formally.

Question put and agreed to.

Subsequent Lords amendments agreed to.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: We now come to Lords amendment No. 7. [Interruption.] Sorry, it should be Lords amendment No. 9. I call the Minister.

Mr. Scott: I understand your problem, Mr. Deputy Speaker, as I am sure do other hon. Members.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I agree that there are too many papers. Before the Minister speaks to the amendment, I must say that I have been rather tolerant this afternoon. The debate on the first group of amendments

went rather wide. My period of tolerance has now ended and hon. Members should address the amendments before the House.
4.45 pm
Lords amendment: No. 9, in page 6, line 14, at end insert
("or training of such other description as may be prescribed")

Mr. Scott: I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this it will be convenient to take Lords amendments Nos. 40, 41 and 65.

Mr. Scott: I am sure that hon. Members, and certainly those who took part in the Committee stage, will recall our discussions in our earlier proceedings. Concern was expressed about the scope of the long training linking rule introduced as part of the incapacity benefit structure. I said then that that was an issue at which I was prepared to look again with sympathy. I undertook to respond, before the end of the Bill's passage, on the outcome of our deliberations. These four amendments were tabled in another place to give effect to our proposals.
As hon. Members may already be aware, the training linking rule is intended to provide an incentive for people receiving incapacity benefit or severe disablement allowance to try to make a return to work. It provides a safeguard in that if their attempt fails because of their incapacity, they can return to the same benefit that they were previously receiving within two years. Additionally, it protects the position of those people who are assessed as capable of work and who begin, or are already undertaking, a training course. If their condition deteriorates again within the two-year period—as it may in some cases—those people could also return to their previous benefit.
I hope that hon. Members will understand that, for people undertaking a training course where a training allowance is not payable, incapacity benefit will remain in payment so long as they continue to satisfy the test of incapacity for work. If at any stage during a person's course of training that person is assessed as no longer satisfying the test of incapacity, as one would reasonably expect, that benefit would cease. Those rules will, as now, apply equally to SDA.
Hon. Members will understand that anyone undertaking a non-Department of Employment course who continues to be incapable of work will have no need of the linking rule. That person's benefit will continue in payment. However, the amendments that I am commending to the House today will benefit people who are undertaking a course of training and fail a test of incapacity and those who begin a training course on leaving benefit.
The amendments expand the use of the term "training for work" as used in the Bill to include
training of such other description as may be prescribed".
That will apply to the long linking rule on both incapacity benefit and SDA.
Amendments Nos. 9 and 65 relate to incapacity benefit and amendment No. 40 relates to severe disablement allowance. That broader definition of "training for work" will also apply to the new qualifying benefit rule on DWA. That allows a person to undertake a period of training between leaving a qualifying benefit, whether that be incapacity benefit or SDA, and making a claim for DWA. Amendment No. 41 gives effect to that change.
We feel that it is essential to use regulations for that provision. I am sure that all hon. Members would agree that training provision has changed dramatically over the past 20 years and will no doubt continue to change in the foreseeable future. Therefore, it is important that legislation in this important area is sufficiently flexible to allow us to keep it up to date when any new relevant initiatives arise.
We have not as yet finalised the drafting of regulations to be made under those powers, but I can tell the House what we intend them to cover. Regulations will specify both additional Department of Employment programmes and the types of non-Government training courses that should be covered. We expect, for example, employment rehabilitation and community action programmes—both run by the Department—to be included. With non-Government training, we intend to include full-time courses, the sole or main purpose of which is the acquisition of occupational or vocational skills. Full-time is defined as "16 hours or more".
As I am sure the hon. Member for Manchester, Withington (Mr. Bradley) will recall, the issue of funding such schemes through the European social fund was raised in Committee. I can assure the House that as long as the sole or main purpose of the course funded by the European social fund is the acquisition of occupational or vocational skills, such courses will be covered by the broader definition. I hope that these changes will be welcomed in the House and outside it.

Mr. Bradley: Clearly, we welcome the Minister's announcement and the amendments that have been tabled. He has looked carefully at the arguments that were put forward in Committee. Our deliberations have borne some fruit today, and we welcome that.
I simply seek clarification not specifically on training but on a related topic, namely, therapeutic earnings. Following our discussions in Committee, a concession was made, and I welcome the correspondence from the Under-Secretary of State.
The way in which the Government have considered the matter is to bring forward the definition of "therapeutic work" as work that is undertaken under medical supervision in a hospital or similar institution. I seek clarification from the Minister as to whether that is as narrowly defined as it would appear to be because, if it is, it clearly seems to fly in the face of the Government's policy on community care.
I should like the Minister to tell the House whether the therapeutic rules will cover people who are living in the community but who are, for example, out-patients of a hospital or other institution, and whether similar rules will cover people who live in the community and attend adult training centres or other similar centres run by local authorities, the voluntary sector or health service authorities. Clearly, that is linked to the views on training. It seemed to us that, although there had been a concession on therapeutic work, it has been extremely narrowly defined.
Will the Minister examine the definition in the broader context of community care with a view to extending the scope for an individual to receive therapeutic earnings?

Clearly, we welcome the amendment, and I would welcome any further comments that the Minister may have on that point.

Mr. Scott: I think that the hon. Gentleman recognises my anxiety in this whole area, to enable a smooth transition from, as it were, incapacity through into work. Therefore, the whole issue of therapeutic work is something in which I take a continued and constructive interest.
In practice, there are two types of therapeutic work. There is therapeutic work within some sort of institution and under medical supervision. It is also possible for a person living in the community to have the same advantage as someone in an institution, as long as the work is recommended by their doctor as being therapeutic in its effect. I hope that that covers the main point raised by the hon. Gentleman.

Question put and agreed to.

Subsequent Lords amendments agreed to.

Lords amendment: No. 13, in page 6, line 32, at end insert—
("(4) There shall be excluded any days in respect of which a person was disqualified for receiving incapacity benefit.")

Mr. Scott: I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this it will be convenient to take Lords amendments Nos. 16, 17, 26, 28, 29, 31, 73 and 81.

Mr. Scott: The amendments in this group are of a technical nature and deal with the action to be taken where a person falls into one of three categories, namely, he has become incapable of work through misconduct, he fails without good cause to attend or submit himself to such medical or other treatment as required or, thirdly, he fails without good cause to observe any prescribed rules of behaviour.
In any of those circumstances, a financial penalty will be imposed by stopping the payment of benefit for a period of up to six weeks. At the end of that period, benefit should be reinstated without requiring a further claim to benefit. I hope that these amendments will be acceptable to the House.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 4

POWER TO PROVIDE FOR THE TRANSITION TO INCAPACITY BENEFIT.

Lords amendment: No. 14, in page 9, line 7, at end insert—
("( ) Regulations under this section may provide, in relation to transitional cases where the rate of incapacity benefit falls to be calculated by reference to the rate of dependency allowance paid or payable before commencement, that any old saving provisions shall have effect subject to the regulations or shall cease to have effect in accordance with the regulations.
For the purposes of this subsection—
dependency allowance" means an allowance of the kind provided for in Part IV of the Social Security Contributions and Benefits Act 1992, and
old saving provisions" means provisions of any description, including administrative provisions, in connection with a previous change affecting entitlement to or the amount of dependency allowances, preserving a person's position in any respect.")

Mr. Scott: I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.
The amendment will enable regulations to be made which will make it possible to rationalise the existing forms of transitional protection for dependency increases of invalidity benefit from April 1995. The intention is to align the old provisions with new forms of protection, which we intend to create when incapacity benefit is introduced. The House will be reassured to learn that acceptance of the amendment will not lead to cash losses for those whose circumstances remain unchanged.
During the 1970s and 1980s, the structure of dependency increases changed in a number of ways. I do not think that the House would want me to give a detailed account of those changes. A notable by-product of the process has been the creation of six separate forms of transitional protection. The number of affected beneficiaries is very small, and these forms of protection do not operate on a uniform basis. We believe that it is right to use the opportunity presented by the introduction of the new benefit to place them all on the same footing.
I explained that the relevant provisions do not operate in the same way. Some are linked to ongoing entitlement, and others are linked to the continuation of payment. Without going into any further details, I hope that the hon. Member for Manchester, Withington (Mr. Bradley) and the House will accept that these are reasonable proposals which will make a worthwhile reduction in complexity at the inception of incapacity benefit. I hope that the amendments will be acceptable to the House.

Mr. Bradley: I certainly do not want the Minister to go into the details of all the possible transitional arrangements which may be forthcoming. I wonder whether he could simply clarify a comment that was made in another place. I quote:
The new rules will mean more favourable treatment for some beneficiaries and less advantageous treatment of others when compared with the current arrangements."—[Official Report, House of Lords, 10 May 1994, Vol. 554, c. 1466.]
Is the Minister able to give specific examples of where it will be "less advantageous" than the current arrangements under the new rules for transitional payments?

Mr. Scott: I shall give an illustration. There is a form of existing transitional protection dating from 1985 relating to the introduction of the current earnings rule for adult dependency increases of invalidity benefit. Under that rule, payment ceases when earnings exceed a prescribed limit. However, the old rule provides for tapered withdrawal of the increase, so when the dependency increase is uprated each year the amount of earnings necessary to extinguish it also rises. That produces a rather bizarre effect.
Rather than merely preserving the position of beneficiaries affected by the change in 1985, this form of protection has increased in generosity over time, and would continue to do so at future upratings. Our intention is to place an overriding limit on that form of protection equal to the point at which protection currently ceases. If earnings exceed the limit for more than eight weeks, protection will come to an end. That would allow the existing advantage conferred by that form of protection to be retained, but would not allow subsequent increases in future years. That is one example that I can give the hon. Gentleman of the sort of complexities that have developed. We think that reining back may be necessary in some areas.

Mr. Bradley: Unfortunately, I have not worked up a similar example to compare with the Minister's, but his example is now crystal clear.
Clearly, the arrangements are complicated and we will have to consider them in detail, case by case, as they come up. While in no way opposing the amendments, we notify the House of our intention to return to the matter, probably through regulation, when the real effects of the legislation are apparent after April 1995. We will consider the matter at a later date.

Question put and agreed to.

Lords amendment: No. 15, in page 9, line 12, leave out ("three") and insert ("four")

Mr. Scott: I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this it will be convenient to take Lords amendments Nos. 33 to 39 and 76.

5 pm

Mr. Scott: The amendments arise as a consequence of the recommendations of the House of Lords Select Committee on the Scrutiny of Delegated Powers. While that Committee was broadly content with the approach taken in the Bill, it drew attention to two matters. The first was the period during which regulations made under clauses 4, 5, 6 and 7 will be subject to the affirmative procedure. Members of the House, as well as members of that Committee, rightly pay close attention to whether powers are subject to the affirmative or negative procedures when they consider Bills that contain powers to make secondary legislation.
As the House will understand, twin pressures must be balanced. On the one hand, we must ensure that the business of the House is not cluttered up with regulations that are of minor import, and, on the other, that major measures are properly scrutinised on the Floor of the House. The Bill attempts to marry those concerns by time limiting the period to which regulations will be subject to the affirmative procedure.
The first few sets of regulations made under the provisions are likely to attract a high level of interest and scrutiny, as is proper. Future regulations, however, are likely to be in less controversial areas of legislation.
The Standing Committee welcomed time limiting the application of the affirmative procedure, which was a novel method, but one that responded to concerns expressed when we discussed the matters there. The Government had felt that three years from Royal Assent would be a suitable time for such regulations to be subject to the affirmative procedure. The Committee suggested commencement rather than Royal Assent, in cases where regulations were not made immediately. Regulations will, however, be made before the full commencement of the Act.
In all probability, a commencement order will commence clauses 4 and 7 of the Act in full, but clauses 5 and 6 only to the extent that regulations can be made. A later commencement order will fully commence clauses 5 and 6, along with the rest of the Act.
As clauses 4, 5 and 6 will not be commenced until April 1995, any regulations made under powers contained in those clauses would, if subject to the affirmative procedure only after commencement, automatically revert to the negative procedure. That was not the Committee's or the Government's intention, but we are sympathetic to the


Committee's concerns. We introduced amendments to extend the period in which amendments are subject to the affirmative procedure from three to four years.
Most social security regulations are subject to the scrutiny of the Social Security Advisory Committee. The two main exceptions are regulations made within six months of the Act and regulations that concern rates of benefit. We had originally thought that regulations made under the appropriate section would only set out the rates of age additions. Accordingly, those would not fall to be scrutinised by the SSAC and paragraph 52 was included in schedule 1 of the Bill.
The regulations will be broader than just the rates of benefit. It is appropriate, therefore, that the SSAC should consider those regulations. I commend the amendments to the House.

Mr. Bradley: We, of course, welcome the fact that the amendments have been tabled. My memory of the Standing Committee is not that we were all leaping up and down, full of exhaltation and pleasure because of the time limit on the affirmative procedure. We were expressing pleasure because we had the affirmative procedure and because it would last for a longer period than had originally been intended, rather than at the novelty of time limiting, as the Minister put it.
We also welcome the fact that the regulations will be scrutinised by the Social Security Advisory Committee. I assure the Minister that the Opposition will pay great attention, at every stage, to all the regulations that are introduced. As we have said on many occasions, we do not intend generally to accept that legislation should be by regulation, rather than primary legislation. The Bill is a classic case of more and more of the detail of legislation being pushed towards regulation and so we intend to scrutinise that at every turn, and by every means possible, to ensure proper parliamentary scrutiny of this crucial legislation for disabled people. However, we welcome the amendments.

Clause 5

TEST OF INCAPACITY FOR WORK

Lords amendments Nos. 16 to 18 agreed to.

Lords amendment: No. 19, in page 10, line 41, leave out ("12") and insert ("21")

Mr. Scott: I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this it will be convenient to take Lords amendments Nos. 20 to 23.

Mr. Scott: These amendments extend the own-occupation test to make it more reasonable and to clarify its application.
The Bill introduces two tests of incapacity. The own-occupation test will apply to most people at the onset of their period of sickness and will be applied for the first 28 weeks of incapacity. In essence, it is a test of whether people can do their own job and it mirrors the present system.
We will have to decide who can qualify for the own-occupation test. When the Bill was considered in Standing Committee we proposed that if someone had

worked for more than eight weeks in the past 12 they should undergo the own-occupation test. If someone did not fulfil that requirement, they should undergo the all-work test at the beginning of their incapacity—the latter is the new, functional medical test, with which those hon. Members who have taken part in our discussions will be familiar.
In Committee, the argument was advanced that the qualifying period for the own-occupation test was unreasonable and I undertook to consider the matter further. On reflection, we came to the conclusion that the qualification was less than totally reasonable. It would have meant that someone who had been in work for 20 years and was made redundant would face the all-work test immediately if he or she fell sick after only five weeks of redundancy.
In deciding the qualification for the own-occupation test, our aim was to produce a simple, workable definition that would ensure that as many people as possible underwent the own-occupation test when they became sick. Only in exceptional circumstances did we expect anyone to have to undergo the all-work test at that stage.
The amendment means that someone who has undertaken an occupation for more than eight weeks in the past 21 weeks will face the own-occupation test at the onset of incapacity, which is a much more reasonable approach.
Amendment No. 20 is purely technical and serves to clarify the drafting of section 171B(4). It applies either to disability working allowance or the training long-linking rule, as it applies to a person, where we do not want the long-linking rule to affect the test of incapacity that is applied. Section 171B(4) as it stands could be interpreted to have the effect that, where a person had been working and receiving DWA and made a further claim to benefit, he would be subject to the all-work test even though he had clearly been working for more than eight weeks prior to the claim. That is not what we want and amendment No. 20 puts the issue beyond all doubt, ensuring that the own-occupation test is applied where appropriate. That will be the second beneficial move.
Amendments Nos. 21 and 22 are also designed to clarify the application of the own-occupation test. As I explained before, in the majority of cases, for the first 28 weeks, a person's incapacity will be measured against his own occupation. We want as many people as possible to undergo the own-occupation test at the start of their period of sickness. We always intended that people on training courses—whether paid or unpaid—and who would return to their previous job or employer would be covered by the provision.
Amendment No. 22 is designed to ensure that we have such powers, and amendment No. 21 is a small technical amendment required for the paragraph proposed by amendment No. 22 to be inserted. Amendment No. 23 ensures that we have the necessary powers to ensure that the provision to apply to people who had more than one job during the 21-week period, or who had more than one job at the same time, are also included within this provision.
I understand the concerns which hon. Members have about the own-occupation test and the all-work test, but I hope that they will at least agree that the amendments are important improvements to the own-occupation test.

Mr. Bradley: We have now come to the amendments where I thought that we would be having the debate on the


medical test. But as we had a mini-debate on that—with your indulgence, Mr. Deputy Speaker—I do not intend to range over all the issues of concern which were raised by the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Howarth), which I fully support. However, it seems yet again that this matter has become a great yawning gap in the legislation.
It is the most difficult area for us to debate effectively, even at this late stage in the passing of the legislation, because as yet we have no details of what the medical test will be. We do not know whether it will apply to the own-occupation or to the all-work test, or whether it refers to work at all. As we know, yet again there is no definition of work in the Bill, let alone the other definitions about which we previously expressed concern as they were not on the face of the Bill.
I shall not range over all the concerns about the medical test to which we will clearly return when the medical test is published and goes out for further consultation. I would just seek some clarification about where work on the medical test itself has got to. I am aware that the so-called panel of experts has had meetings. Has that panel now completed its deliberations, or is it having further meetings to consider and refine further this document for which we are awaiting?
Will the revised medical test which is to go out for consultation still be published in August of this year? If and when it is published, how will consultation on the revised document be undertaken? What organisations and individuals will be consulted on that test?
5.15 pm
Crucially, can the Minister give me some guidance on how the Government intend to respond to the clear divergence of opinion within the so-called panel of experts about the way in which the test is being put together? The Minister is well aware of a letter which was sent to the noble Lord Astor from a number of organisations which are involved in the new medical test. They have sought clarification on one point upon which the Minister may want to comment.
The letter, dated 6 May 1994, states:


It really will not be acceptable if panellists' concerns about various aspects of the test are not acknowledged in the final report of the consultation and departmental evaluation of the new test".
Will their differing views about how the test can operate in practice be presented in the final report? The letter continues:
We seek your assurance that there will be an opportunity to address our concerns, for example in a special section of the report.
If the deliberations have moved on to a point where the revised medical test is about to be finalised—it is clear that there are a lot of differences of opinion about how the functional test will apply in practice—will those panellists be afforded the opportunity before the report is published to express their views further?
Will those differences of opinion be expressed in the report or do the Government intend to try to impose their consensual view upon the panel of experts to come out with a report which they believe reflects all the issues that the 80 panellists are expressing? These are very important matters on which we must judge the medical test within the legislation.
I hope that the Minister can give the House some assurances about the progress and presentation of that test

and how it will be then further debated, and the issues of concern brought back to the Floor of the House through regulation for our further consideration.

Mr. Scott: The hon. Member for Manchester, Withington (Mr. Bradley) acknowledged that the work has been proceeding. The results of the work—that is to say, the consultation process, the assessment panels and the evaluation study phases have already been completed—are now being analysed, and the detail of the tests will be revised to take account of the outcome of the consultation, development and evaluation processes.
Our next step is still to publish the results with our final proposals in a report in August. Only after all that will we present our final proposals on the test to Parliament for approval in the form of regulations. The earlier publication of our final proposals should allow interested parties to make their views known before the regulations are laid, and should ensure that we develop a test that is fair. The panel's task has been to advise on the details of the test, although of course not on the basis of the policy. Nobody was asked in any sense to sign up to the basis of the policy when they agreed to take part in the panel's work.
I must say that it has been an almost unique and very useful exercise to have the panel involved in the important work. I should emphasise, perhaps particularly at this point, that no decision has yet been made about the setting of thresholds which will determine whether or not a person is found capable or incapable of work. Nor will any decisions be made until the development and evaluation work is complete.
Once we have published our findings, regulations will be laid, and it will then obviously be up to any organisation to come forward with their comments on those proposals. We will obviously take account of those as the final shape of the test is decided.

Dr. Godman: Does the eight-week period incorporate training for a person's work? For example, welders work intermittently in the offshore fabrication industry, and if they are out of work for three or four weeks, they may not be able to reach the standards set for such work in that industry. They have been out of work to undergo periods of training to bring them back to the levels required by Norsk Veritas and an American insurance regulatory body. Does that eight-week period incorporate or include periods of training?

Mr. Scott: The hon. Gentleman's intervention relates to a previous amendment, but that period certainly would include any period of training. I was talking specifically about the medical test and the arrangements being made for our proposals to be brought forward properly and publicly discussed. There will then be a final opportunity for the House to discuss the regulations which will flow from that. If I can leap backwards, the answer to the hon. Gentleman is that such a period will certainly apply.

Mr. Bradley: I glean from the Minister's response that he intends to issue the final report, and that those panellists who have a dissenting view on it, rather than having their views highlighted in the report, will be allowed to comment on it. If I have misunderstood, I would welcome a correction from the Minister. It is important to discover whether the document will be published as though there was consensus. Will those panellists who disagree have an


opportunity to express their opinions separately, or will their concerns be highlighted when the revised report is published?

Mr. Scott: It is my present intention that, once the Government have considered the work of the panellists and the evaluation process, they will come forward with their own proposals. It will then be open to anyone to make clear his views about them. Whatever people's final views, I am extremely grateful to those who have taken part in the work of the panel for the body of expertise that they have offered and the fact that they have concentrated on an important issue.

Question put and agreed to.

Subsequent Lords amendments agreed to, some with Special Entry.

Schedule 1

CONSEQUENTIAL AMENDMENTS

Lords amendment: No. 42, in page 19, line 24, at end insert
("under section 30A below or short-term or long-term incapacity benefit under section 40 or 41 below")

Mr. Scott: I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this it will be convenient to discuss Lords amendments Nos. 43, 47 to 64, 72, 74 and 75.

Mr. Bradley: The effect of the amendment, as laid out in the Department's document, is welcome. Widows and widowers who are incapable of work will qualify for incapacity benefit on the basis of their deceased spouses' national insurance contributions. Why are industrial injuries excluded from a similar provision?

Mr. Scott: I am not sure that I can give an answer off the cuff, but I will write to the hon. Gentleman to let him know.

Question put and agreed to.

Subsequent Lords amendments agreed to.

Orders of the Day — Sunday Trading Bill

Lords amendments considered.

Lords amendments Nos.1 to 4 agreed to.

Schedule 1

RESTRICTIONS ON SUNDAY OPENING OF LARGE SHOPS

Lords amendment: No. 5, in page 4, leave out line 9

The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Peter Lloyd): I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Geoffrey Lofthouse): With this it will be convenient to take Lords amendments Nos. 6 to 8, 10, 11 and 13.

Mr. Lloyd: During the many changes that the Bill has undergone, any reference to "licensed premises", other than in the list of definitions, has been removed from schedule 1. The definition is therefore redundant, and amendment No. 5 seeks to delete it. I hope that it will assist the House if I also say a word about the other amendments in the group.
Amendments Nos. 6 and 11 would provide an exemption for any stand used in an exhibition from the six-hour restriction that the Bill places on trading by large shops. According to the current law, stands at most exhibitions are able to trade legally on a Sunday, notwithstanding the provisions of the Shops Act 1950, because of a series of provisions in various local Acts, which allow trading at specific and listed sites. For example, the West Midlands County Council Act 1980 disapplies the closing and Sunday trading provisions of the 1950 Act to any shop or stand open during the course of an exhibition at the National Exhibition Centre.
This is, of course, a matter for the House, but, as I see it, the amendments do not provide a loophole for large retailers to slip through. They would lay to rest any concerns of exhibitors who have always hitherto enjoyed free trading on a Sunday.
Amendment No. 7 would allow large farm shops to trade at any hour on a Sunday instead of being restricted to six hours trading like other large stores. Up to a point, shops on farms have always been in a privileged position regarding Sunday trading. Section 58 of the 1950 Act allows on a Sunday
the sale at a farm, of produce produced thereon".
That provision was intended to provide that, if a farmer sold a customer some of his own produce, he would not be in breach of the Sunday trading provisions.
Times have changed, however, and some of the farm shops now in operation are larger than 3,000 sq ft. If those shops have been trading on a Sunday they may well have been doing so in breach of the 1950 Act by selling far more than the produce of the farm on which they are situated. Whatever the potential anomaly in allowing a large shop to open at any hour on a Sunday, as long as it is on a farm and sells wholly or mainly home-grown produce, the practical effect of the amendment would be very limited.
Amendment No. 8 would extend the list of those large shops that the Bill allows to open beyond six hours to include shops where the goods sold were "wholly or mainly" motor and cycle supplies. The 1950 Act allows the sale of motor and cycle supplies and accessories on a


Sunday. Partly as a result of that provision, large motor supplies shops, such as Halfords, have been trading all day on a Sunday for a considerable number of years. Such retailers have managed their business, at least in part, on the assumption that all-day trading on Sunday is a lawful activity for them.
Amendment No. 10 concerns pharmacies. Under the 1950 Act, pharmacies may sell medicines and medical and surgical appliances on a Sunday. That reflects the fact that, irrespective of the general considerations that Parliament might wish to apply to Sunday trading, it should be possible for a pharmacy to open at any time on a Sunday to dispense medicine and sell products that can genuinely be considered to have a medical application.
The Bill as originally worded provided an exemption only for the sale of medicinal products and surgical appliances. That meant that items such as thermometers could not be sold by large pharmacies outside the six permitted hours on a Sunday. The amendment simply allows large pharmacies to sell those items that, under current legislation, they are permitted to sell on Sunday outside the new six-hour period—for example, when they are on rota duty.
I make those points for clarification. The Government are, of course, entirely content for the House to decide freely upon the amendments.

Mr. David Alton: The debate has fallen rather earlier than some may have anticipated, but it is good to see that so many hon. Members are in their place.
The Sunday Trading Bill and the Bill presented by the hon. Member for Ogmore (Mr. Powell) have been debated in the Chamber and in the other place for what seems to have been an interminable time. The Minister will be as pleased as everyone else in Parliament when this matter is finally resolved.
May I say at the outset of consideration of the Lords amendments that, although those of us opposed to Sunday trading regretted the measures agreed at an earlier stage, we felt that at least a commitment to compromise had been made. Indeed, the word was used both by the Minister and other hon. Members at various stages. Having been amended in another place, the idea that the Bill remains a compromise has now been blown out of the water.
The shopping hours reform lobby has abused the law, spent its millions and bought its preferred option at bargain basement prices from legislators who salve their consciences at the expense of families, communities, low-paid shop workers and small businesses. Everything we warned about in this Chamber during the earlier stages of the Bill has now come to pass. Every commodity under the sun is now on sale on Sundays. Employees who once spent Sundays with their families are now forced to work, and the special traditional nature of one day of peace and quiet has been destroyed by mercenaries whose only ideals may be measured in sterling.
The Bill was sold on the basis of the right to shop. That flaccid language of rights and choice, shorn of reference to duties, obligations or responsibilities, hides the real cost of Sunday trading. Thoreau once said that, if we cut down the trees, the birds will no longer be able to sing. By destroying Sunday as a unique day, ordinary people will lose the opportunity to spend time with one another, their families and relatives, and to have a day of tranquillity away from the hustle and bustle of every other day of shopping.

Mr. James Couchman: The hon. Gentleman makes many presumptions. He presumes that the House will agree with the Lords amendments. He should wait for the debate.

Mr. Alton: Far from waiting for the debate, I am participating in it, and trying to persuade the hon. Gentleman, who has been one of the leading advocates of Sunday trading, that he should join us in the Lobby later, should it be necessary, to oppose the Lords amendments.
The noble Lord Earl Ferrers, the Minister dealing with Sunday trading in the other place, said:
I would add just one personal caveat. I have mentioned it before, and I do so without any form of direction. I think that we should be careful about bringing into the Bill a great number of additional exceptions. We have already agreed an exception for motor supply shops. If all the exceptions which have been proposed were accepted, we might well find, as my noble friend Lady Young has said, that the reform is becoming largely indistinguishable from the total deregulation which this place has already rejected."—[Official Report, House of Lords, 14 April 1994; Vol. 553, c. 1682–3.]
Thus, the Home Office Minister in another place has said that, were the amendments then before the other place accepted, the Bill would become indistinguishable from the total deregulation which the House of Commons had earlier rejected. I remind hon. Members that those amendments are now incorporated in the Bill, and we are invited to vote on them this afternoon.

Mrs. Elizabeth Peacock: The hon. Gentleman mentioned motor accessory shops. We are not changing the law on those, as they have been allowed to trade since 1950. If his wife or children were to break down on a Sunday and wanted a part for their car, he would not want them stranded on the motorway because the shop had closed. We are not changing the law, but simply putting it back.

Mr. Alton: I take that point. I am not dealing with all the amendments in precisely the same way. I shall come to the detail in a moment.
We should listen carefully to the warning of the noble Lord Earl Ferrers, that, if a range of new exemptions and exceptions were agreed, the carefully crafted compromise made in this House would be placed in jeopardy. The compromise left many of us cold, because we still said that Sundays should remain a special day.
Amendment No. 7 deals with farm shops. I feel strongly that it is unnecessary. When considering its merits, it is important to do so from a rational perspective. Were the amendment passed, any farm shop which had an internal floor area exceeding 280 sq m or 3,000 sq ft or, from another perspective, was larger than the Chamber of the House of Commons could open for unlimited hours on Sundays. How many farm shops fall within that category, and what is the nature of their business? I hope that the Minister will answer those points.

Mr. Peter Lloyd: Those are not my amendments, but I have explained them to the House. The hon. Gentleman has given only half the picture and, in fairness to the House, he should give the whole picture. Only shops situated on a farm that sell products wholly or mainly supplied from that farm will fall within the scope of the amendment. So it is drastically restricted, as I said in my explanation.

Mr. Alton: That makes the measurements which I gave the House sound equally absurd. What sort of business will be able to produce such a volume? I am arguing that the amendment is unnecessary.

Mr. Peter Luff: I urge the hon. Gentleman to reflect on the efficient use of space by farm shops. In my experience, they are often located within large barns, so are comfortably in excess of the floor area that he mentioned, although they are genuinely small businesses of the kind that he and I are trying to protect.

Mr. Alton: The hon. Gentleman makes a good point.
Another issue is why farm shops need to open for longer than six hours on Sundays, given that they will not provide an emergency service. Any farm shop that exceeds 280 sq m must be entering into significant commercial activity, selling a wide variety of products to attract sufficient custom to remain profitable.
While the amendment requires farm shops to sell at least 51 per cent. of goods produced on the farm in question, it further permits the shop to sell up to 49 per cent. of other goods, such as other foodstuffs, tourist souvenirs, gardening equipment and garden furniture. As a consequence, the amendment would create further unfair competition and anomalies within the Bill, giving preferential treatment and trading advantage to one type of retailer over another.
Could not the type of store envisaged as opening under this provision more accurately be described as a garden centre, grocery store, supermarket, or even tourist shop, rather than a traditional farm shop? It is unfair to permit large farm shops to open beyond the six-hour limit, when supermarkets, tourist shops—and, depending on the outcome of a later amendment, garden centres—will be required to close after six hours.
Amendment No. 7 also represents the liberalising of the existing law, so it also jeopardises the carefully crafted agreements previously worked out in this House. Under section 58 of the Shops Act 1950, farm shops, regardless of size, are permitted to open all day on Sundays, but only to sell produce produced thereon. Under this amendment, while farm shops will be allowed to sell 51 per cent. of their own-grown produce, they will also be free to sell up to 49 per cent. of goods brought in from outside.

Mr. Ray Powell: The hon. Gentleman will be aware of the marvellous garden show in London. Only recently, it disclosed that exhibitors buy most of the flowers on their stalls elsewhere. Would not even the large farm shops import goods that were not produced on their farm if they were allowed an opportunity to trade for more than six hours? Would not that be unfair?

Mr. Alton: It would indeed. As the hon. Member for Ogmore (Mr. Powell) rightly described, it would be another element of unfair competition, which is at the heart of the arguments that he, I and other hon. Members in all parts of the House have advanced against the Bill throughout. It will inevitably destroy smaller businesses, it will inevitably build in unfair competition and it will greatly damage the traditional tranquillity that families and communities have enjoyed on a Sunday when it has been a special day.
Amendment No. 8 deals with motor and cycle supply outlets. The Royal Automobile Club and the Automobile Association have widely distributed briefings to Members

which argue in favour of amendment No. 6, in permitting large motor and cycle supply outlets—those of more than 280 sq m—to open for unlimited, as opposed to six-hour, Sunday trading. The main thrust of the RAC and AA argument is:
The House of Lords amendment is a technical amendment to the Bill. It does NOT seek a new concession for motorists but merely seeks to maintain the current legal position for motoring supply outlets".
They say that large motor supply outlets provide an emergency service on Sunday, and that if those large centres were restricted to six hours' opening on Sunday, lives—the hon. Member for Batley and Spen (Mrs. Peacock) intimated that too—would be put at risk and significant inconvenience would be caused to motorists.
That is misleading in several respects. Amendment No. 6 represents a significant liberalisation of the law. To argue that the Lords—

Mr. Luff: rose—

Mr. Alton: If I may advance for a moment, I shall happily give way.

Mr. Luff: It is a short point. I believe that the hon. Gentleman is speaking to amendment No. 8, not amendment No. 6. I wish to clarify that.

Mr. Alton: I am speaking about amendment No. 8, but it also involves amendment No. 6. If the hon. Gentleman looks at the list of amendments, he will see that that is the case.
To argue that Lords amendment No. 6 is a technical amendment which merely retains an existing exemption already granted to motor and cycle supply outlets is inaccurate and highly misleading. The House of Lords amendment is far broader in scope than the existing law governing motor or cycle supply outlets on Sunday.
The Shops Act 1950 exempts motor and cycle supply outlets to open on Sundays regardless of size, but only to sell a narrow range of products. Schedule 5 to the Shops Act 1950 states that a shop may open for the serving of customers on Sundays for the sale of
aircraft, motor, or cycle supplies or accessories".
The courts have always interpreted that provision narrowly, ruling that neither a pair of tights converted for use as a fan belt nor a fridge to be installed in a caravan were motor supplies or accessories. Rather, the term
motor, or cycle supplies or accessories
has been interpreted to include only items that are directly usable for mechanical purposes, to service a motor vehicle or bicycle or, in, certain circumstances, to decorate a vehicle, for example, furry dice. It is worth noting that that definition would not include new or second-hand cars or bicycles, but rather only parts for them.
In contrast, the proposed amendment exempts large motor or cycle outlets to open to sell their full range of products for unlimited hours on Sundays, provided that
the trade or business carried on
in the shop
consists wholly or mainly of the sale of any one or more of the following—

(i) motor supplies and accessories, and
(ii) cycle supplies and accessories".


The key term used in the amendment is "wholly or mainly". Although that term will be the subject of judicial interpretation, it is expected that, for the purposes of the Bill, it will mean 51 per cent. turnover.
Consequently, if the amendment were accepted today, motor or cycle supply outlets such as Halfords would be able to open for unlimited hours on Sundays, with up to 49 per cent. of their sales coming from goods that may not lawfully be sold under the existing law.

Mr. Michael Fabricant: rose—

Mr. Alton: I wish to make a little progress.
Stores such as Halfords would be free to extend their business activities significantly—for example, to sell equipment for use in caravans, for tourists, maps, camping equipment, picnic ware and so on, and continue to open for unlimited hours on Sundays, whereas their competitors are required to close after six hours.
The right hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Dame A. Rumbold) and the hon. Member for Mid-Staffordshire (Mr. Fabricant) are probably anxious that I discuss emergency services, so I shall discuss that now. I ask the Minister to clarify whether the emergency services such as the RAC and AA rely on outlets such as Halfords for the supply of repair parts on Sundays. I believe that the AA and the RAC carry most general spare parts with them in their vans. The need to have access to stores such as Halfords on Sundays is minimal.

Mr. John Marshall: rose—

Mr. Alton: Please would the hon. Gentleman wait?
Most RAC and AA vans do not carry a wide range of specialised parts designed for specific markets or cars. However, I believe that the emergency services tend to rely on specialist traders, which mainly operate out of garage sites, to supply those parts, as opposed to the general high street traders.
The RAC and AA, in their briefings, have said that 30 per cent. that is 330,000—of breakdowns take place after 6 pm on Sundays. It must be asked, however, how many of those breakdowns involve the use of spare parts that are not usually carried in AA or RAC vans, and which are supplied in stores such as Halfords. In addition, I hope that the Minister will say how many of those cases would involve the car being repaired on Sundays, as opposed to being towed away and repaired on Monday morning.
It should further be noted that small motor supply outlets are exempted under the Bill to open for unlimited hours on Sundays. If there is significant and sufficient demand for spare parts before 10 pm and after 6 pm on Sundays, those smaller outlets will undoubtedly remain open, adding to the number of shops and premises that trade on Sunday.

Mr. Fabricant: rose—

Mr. Alton: I shall finish the argument, and then I shall give way.
I do not believe that adequate evidence is available to establish that large motor and cycle supply shops provide an emergency service on Sundays during the early mornings or evening hours which neither can be nor is being met by small motor outlets or specialist dealers who supply the RAC and AA direct. The acceptance of amendment No. 6 will only increase the anomalies—[HON. MEMBERS: "Amendment No. 8."]—amendment No. 8, and I think as it affects amendment No. 6 earlier. It will only increase the unfair competition and difficulties of enforcement already created in the Bill.
I happily give way to the hon. Member for Mid-Staffordshire.

Mr. Fabricant: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. We have worked on several Committees, including the Committee that considered the Shops (Amendment) Bill of the hon. Member for Ogmore (Mr. Powell), and the Committee on the Bill that we are debating.
Does he accept that, if he were to remove the "wholly or mainly" from the definition of the supply of goods in stores such as Halfords, which was one of his arguments, people—not the RAC or the AA, but people who do their own car maintenance—might buy spark plugs but be unable to buy a spark plug spanner or, perhaps more worryingly, be able to buy brake pads but not the right tool kit to put the brake pads in? Although he may be of sufficient wealth to have his car serviced by professional organisations, does he accept that many people in this country do their own servicing?

Mr. Alton: Of course I accept that, and I do not think that it will impinge on them, as the present law has failed to do in the past. There is no reason why people should be inconvenienced. It is simply that, if we do not want, as I do not—the hon. Gentleman and I entirely disagree about that—large numbers of extra retail outlets to open throughout the country, we must be careful not to provide, as we have in this legislation, so much coach-and-horses provision that anyone and everyone will be able to open at every hour of the day and the night.

Dame Angela Rumbold: I accept the anxieties that the hon. Gentleman expresses about the notion of large stores being added to the ones that already open. However, does he accept that the number of makes of motor cars nowadays is so great that it is possible that only large stores will have the correct, and sufficient numbers of, spare parts to suit any one of any range of cars? That argument is the most powerful, I think, and it is for that reason—and the fact that, under the old law, Halfords and other large motor spare stores have been allowed to build—that they have extended and expanded their services.

Mr. Alton: I should have thought that it was the other way round—that cars of a more marginal nature, which are not supplied by one of the big car manufacturers, would be most likely to be affected in the way that the right hon. Lady describes. I should have thought that every other trading day, when those outlets are open and people can provide themselves with the spare parts and pieces they need, would provide them with sufficient opportunity to do so without having to extend that time as the amendments seek to do.
I think that the Minister will agree that we attempted, during long, laborious hours in Committee, on Report and during the various debates on the Shops (Amendment) Bill, to reach a sensible agreement. We all accepted that there would be some anomaly. We all admitted that there were massive anomalies in the Shops Act 1950. There are bound to be anomalies in any legislation that the House passes, but we do not need to add to them. Some of the Lords amendments seem to do that and, worse, they seem to undermine the law by trying to push still further the case for wholesale liberalisation. That was what the noble Earl


Ferrers argued when the Bill was in the other place. That carefully crafted, constructive compromise is at stake today.
We will not be able radically to change the nature of the Bill at this late stage. The message that will be sent out to people who have observed the proceedings governing the Bill and who have followed the arguments throughout will be that yet another aspect of the debate has gone by default. They will receive the message that yet another loss has been occasioned because of the legislators' failure to safeguard what has traditionally been the one special day enjoyed by families and communities the length and breadth of the land. It is for those reasons that I have raised my opposition and questions to the Lords amendments.

Dame Angela Rumbold: I wish to make a few simple arguments in support of Lords amendment No. 8. The most telling point in the amendment is that it simply restores the legislation that existed before we entered on the laborious and lengthy exercise of trying to modernise the Shops Act 1950.
The subject of amendment No. 8 is the one sphere in which the 1950 Act made an exception. The number of people who now own cars has risen substantially since 1950, when there were 2.3 million. There are now, in 1994, perhaps regrettably, 22 million car owners. In 2000, there are likely to be 25 million car owners.
We must not assume that every one of those car owners will be able to enjoy the pleasures of membership of one of the motoring organisations. There are currently 10 million people who are not members of a motoring organisation and depend entirely on their own resources and access to spares to make their cars roadworthy. Until now, they have been able to go to Halfords or a large store with a wide range of spare parts for cars and motor cycles on a Sunday if their vehicle was not functioning in order to repair it so that it would function on Monday through to Saturday.

Mr. John Marshall: Does my right hon. Friend agree that those who oppose the amendment could do so logically if the law also said that breakdowns could not occur on Sundays?

Dame Angela Rumbold: I am not entirely sure whether I agree with my hon. Friend, but hon. Members can make up their own minds.
I sincerely believe that we should not attempt to make the Bill more restrictive than necessary. I have no problems with my position; I have never been anything other than a total deregulator on the issue. I am sad that we have had to impose restrictions, but I am glad that we have at least some agreement in the House on the sort of restrictions that we have agreed to accept. I am concerned that we should not now renege on those agreements by saying that we want to impose a greater restriction on the sale of motor spares than existed in the 1950 Act. I ask my colleagues to consider the subject carefully and to support the Lords amendment No. 8.

Dr. Robert Spink: I shall not delay the House long. I shall not reiterate the detailed points made by the hon. Member for Liverpool, Mossley Hill (Mr. Alton), as he made them extremely well.
I shall deal with the principle of whether or not the regulations are tightly in place. I see that the hon. Member for Ogmore (Mr. Powell) has just entered the Chamber, so I shall use the words of his national poet, Dylan Thomas:
Time let me play and be
Golden in the mercy of his means
…and the sabbath rang slowly
In the pebbles of the holy streams.
The sabbath rang slowly, but the sabbath will never ring slowly again as a result of the decision that we have made. I believe that we shall come to rue the day that we passed the Sunday Trading Bill. In principle, we should seek to keep Sunday as a special day, and resist the amendments before us.

Mr. Luff: I had not intended to intervene in the debate on this group of amendments, but in view of the confusion over amendment numbers in the speech of the hon. Member for Liverpool, Mossley Hill (Mr. Alton), I think that it is important to clarify the issue.
The hon. Gentleman repeatedly referred to amendment No. 6 in relation to motor supplies and cycle supplies, but amendment No. 6 relates to exemptions for stands at exhibitions, as does amendment No. 11. I hope that amendments Nos. 6 and 11 will not attract any controversy in the House. The amendments to exempt exhibition stands from the provisions of the Sunday Trading Bill are genuinely technical. Exhibitions are not generally affected by the Bill, and the amendments are simply to ensure that individual stands in exhibitions, which might otherwise fall within the definition of a shop, are not affected either.
The amendments are minor, but they are important to the exhibition industry of the United Kingdom if our venues are to be able to compete on an equal basis with exhibition venues overseas, particularly in the European single market. The amendments do not undermine the Bill's principle or provide a loophole in the law. The term "exhibition" has already been defined, so it remains a question of fact. For this purpose, in any dispute about whether something constitutes an exhibition, the courts can decide on the facts on the basis "you know an exhibition when you see one".
The Sunday Trading Bill provides the Secretary of State with the power simply to continue with existing exemptions in local legislation for some venues such as Earls Court, Olympia and the National Exhibition Centre outside Birmingham. Amendments Nos. 6 and 11 ensure that exhibition venues throughout the countries of England and Wales are treated on an equal footing with other venues, with one rule being applied to all. I hope that they will command universal support in the House.

Mrs. Peacock: I should like to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr. Luff) with a word on amendments Nos. 6 and 11, which are important, not only to the exhibition industry, but to manufacturing industry, many of whose members exhibit at exhibitions that commence on Sundays. Sunday is the very day that retailers are able to visit exhibitions to order and buy goods for sale in their shops. It is most important that we do not impose any restrictions that could affect our manufacturing industry.
As chairman of the House of Commons motor club, I wrote to my hon. Friend the Minister about amendment No. 8, which has been sensibly placed in the Bill by their


Lordships. Perhaps the original legislation should have contained the provision—I certainly want to see it continued.
As my right hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Dame A. Rumbold) said, more than 10 million car owners in this country do not belong to the AA or the RAC. None of us wants to see young families or anyone else stranded and having to wait until the shops open the next morning to buy the necessary parts to repair their car if it breaks down after hours. I hope that the House will recognise that.

Mr. Fabricant: Will the hon. Lady give way?

Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Janet Fookes): Order. I think that the hon. Member for Batley and Spen (Mrs. Peacock) has completed her speech.

6 pm

Mr. Jim Lester: I have circulated amendment No. 10 to most hon. Members, as it principally affects a constituency company, Boots. It reinstates in the Bill provisions that originally existed in relation to pharmacists. The pharmacists do not seek additional hours or changes in the hours, but want to be allowed to sell products that are essential for people's health. Pharmacists have been able to sell those products until now, and the amendment restores the original position without affecting the opening hours.

Question put and agreed to.

Lords amendment No 6 agreed to.

Lords amendment: No. 7, in page 4, line 44, at end insert—
("(za) any shop which is at a farm and where the trade or business carried on consists wholly or mainly of the sale of produce from that farm,")

Motion made, and Question put, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.—[Mr. Peter Lloyd.]

The House divided: Ayes 246, Noes 191.

Division No. 269]
[6.00 pm


AYES


Ainsworth, Peter (East Surrey)
Burns, Simon


Aitken, Jonathan
Butcher, John


Allason, Rupert (Torbay)
Butler, Peter


Arbuthnot, James
Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)


Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)
Cann, Jamie


Arnold, Sir Thomas (Hazel Grv)
Carlile, Alexander (Montgomry)


Ashdown, Rt Hon Paddy
Carlisle, Sir Kenneth (Lincoln)


Aspinwall, Jack
Carrington, Matthew


Atkins, Robert
Carttiss, Michael


Atkinson, Peter (Hexham)
Cash, William


Austin-Walker, John
Chapman, Sydney


Baldry, Tony
Clappison, James


Banks, Matthew (Southport)
Clarke, Rt Hon Kenneth (Ruclif)


Barron, Kevin
Clifton-Brown, Geoffrey


Batiste, Spencer
Clwyd, Mrs Ann


Bellingham, Henry
Coe, Sebastian


Bendall, Vivian
Colvin, Michael


Beresford, Sir Paul
Congdon, David


Betts, Clive
Conway, Derek


Biffen, Rt Hon John
Cook, Robin (Livingston)


Boswell, Tim
Coombs, Anthony (Wyre For'st)


Bottomley, Peter (Eltham)
Coombs, Simon (Swindon)


Boyes, Roland
Couchman, James


Brandreth, Gyles
Currie, Mrs Edwina (S D'by'ire)


Bright, Graham
Curry, David (Skipton & Ripon)


Brooke, Rt Hon Peter
Darling, Alistair


Brown, M. (Brigg & Cl'thorpes)
Davies, Bryan (Oldham C'tral)


Browning, Mrs. Angela
Davies, Ron (Caerphilly)


Bruce, Ian (S Dorset)

Davis, David (Boothferry)


Budgen, Nicholas
Deva, Nirj Joseph





Dorrell, Stephen
MacGregor, Rt Hon John


Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James
MacKay, Andrew


Dover, Den
Maclean, David


Dowd, Jim
McLoughlin, Patrick


Duncan, Alan
McNair-Wilson, Sir Patrick


Duncan-Smith, Iain
Madel, Sir David


Durant, Sir Anthony
Maitland, Lady Olga


Dykes, Hugh
Malone, Gerald


Eggar, Tim
Mandelson, Peter


Elletson, Harold
Marland, Paul


Evans, David (Welwyn Hatfield)
Marshall, John (Hendon S)


Evans, Nigel (Ribble Valley)
Martin, David (Portsmouth S)


Evennett, David
Mates, Michael


Faber, David
Miller, Andrew


Field, Barry (Isle of Wight)
Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)


Fishburn, Dudley
Moate, Sir Roger


Flynn, Paul
Montgomery, Sir Fergus


Fox, Dr Liam (Woodspring)
Moonie, Dr Lewis


Fox, Sir Marcus (Shipley)
Morley, Elliot


Freeman, Rt Hon Roger
Morris, Estelle (B'ham Yardley)


French, Douglas
Moss, Malcolm


Fry, Sir Peter
Mowlam, Marjorie


Gale, Roger
Mullin, Chris


Gallie, Phil
Nelson, Anthony


Garnier, Edward
Newton, Rt Hon Tony


Gillan, Cheryl
Nicholls, Patrick


Goodlad, Rt Hon Alastair
Norris, Steve


Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles
O'Brien, Michael (N W'kshire)


Gorst, Sir John
O'Neill, Martin


Greenway, John (Ryedale)
Onslow, Rt Hon Sir Cranley


Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth, N)
Oppenheim, Phillip


Gunnell, John
Ottaway, Richard


Hague, William
Page, Richard


Hamilton, Rt Hon Sir Archie
Paice, James


Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)
Patnick, Irvine


Hargreaves, Andrew
Patten, Rt Hon John


Harris, David
Pattie, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey


Harvey, Nick
Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth


Haselhurst, Alan
Pickles, Eric


Hawkins, Nick
Pope, Greg


Hawksley, Warren
Portillo, Rt Hon Michael


Hayes, Jerry
Prentice, Gordon (Pendle)


Heathcoat-Amory, David
Redwood, Rt Hon John



Hicks, Robert
Rendel, David


Hill, Keith (Streatham)
Renton, Rt Hon Tim


Hoon, Geoffrey
Richards, Rod


Horam, John
Riddick, Graham


Hordern, Rt Hon Sir Peter
Rifkind, Rt Hon. Malcolm


Howard, Rt Hon Michael
Roberts, Rt Hon Sir Wyn


Howarth, Alan (Strat'rd-on-A)
Robinson, Mark (Somerton)



Howell, Rt Hon David (G'dford)
Roe, Mrs Marion (Broxbourne)


Hughes, Kevin (Doncaster N)
Rooker, Jeff


Hughes Robert G. (Harrow W)
Rumbold, Rt Hon Dame Angela


Hunt, Sir John (Ravensbourne)
Ryder, Rt Hon Richard


Jack, Michael
Sackville, Tom


Jackson, Robert (Wantage)
Scott, Rt Hon Nicholas


Jenkin, Bernard
Shaw, David (Dover)


Johnson Smith, Sir Geoffrey
Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)


Johnston, Sir Russell
Sims, Roger


Jones, Nigel (Cheltenham)
Skeet, Sir Trevor


Jones, Robert B. (W Hertfdshr)
Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)


Jopling, Rt Hon Michael
Soames, Nicholas


Key, Robert
Speed, Sir Keith


King, Rt Hon Tom
Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)


Kirkhope, Timothy
Sproat, Iain


Kirkwood, Archy
Squire, Robin (Hornchurch)


Knight, Mrs Angela (Erewash)
Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John


Knight, Greg (Derby N)
Steel, Rt Hon Sir David


Knox, Sir David
Steen, Anthony


Kynoch, George (Kincardine)
Stern, Michael


Lait, Mrs Jacqui
Strang, Dr. Gavin


Lang, Rt Hon Ian
Sweeney, Walter


Lawrence, Sir Ivan
Sykes, John


Leigh, Edward
Tapsell, Sir Peter


Lennox-Boyd, Mark
Taylor, Ian (Esher)


Lidington, David
Taylor, John M. (Solihull)


Lightbown, David
Temple-Morris, Peter


Lloyd, Rt Hon Peter (Fareham)
Thompson, Sir Donald (C'er V)


Luff, Peter
Thornton, Sir Malcolm


Lyell, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas
Thurnham, Peter






Townend, John (Bridlington)
Wardle, Charles (Bexhill)


Townsend, Cyril D. (Bexl'yh'th)
Watts, John


Tracey, Richard
Wells, Bowen


Tredinnick, David
Wheeler, Rt Hon Sir John


Trend, Michael
Whitney, Ray


Trotter, Neville
Whittingdale, John


Twinn, Dr Ian
Widdecombe, Ann


Tyler, Paul
Willetts, David


Vaughan, Sir Gerard
Wood, Timothy


Viggers, Peter
Young, Rt Hon Sir George


Waldegrave, Rt Hon William



Walden, George
Tellers for the Ayes:


Walker, Bill (N Tayside)
Sir George Gardiner and>


Walker, Rt Hon Sir Harold
Mr. Michael Fabricant.


Ward, John



NOES


Abbott, Ms Diane
Gapes, Mike


Ainsworth, Robert (Cov'try NE)
Garrett, John


Alison, Rt Hon Michael (Selby)
George, Bruce


Allen, Graham
Godman, Dr Norman A.


Alton, David
Godsiff, Roger


Amess, David
Gordon, Mildred


Anderson, Donald (Swansea E)
Graham, Thomas


Anderson, Ms Janet (Ros'dale)
Grant, Bernie (Tottenham)


Ashton, Joe
Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)


Baker, Rt Hon K. (Mole Valley)
Grocott, Bruce


Baker, Nicholas (Dorset North)
Grylls, Sir Michael


Barnes, Harry
Hain, Peter


Bates, Michael
Hall, Mike


Bayley, Hugh
Hannam, Sir John


Beith, Rt Hon A. J.
Hanson, David


Bell, Stuart
Hardy, Peter


Benn, Rt Hon Tony
Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy


Bennett, Andrew F.
Heppell, John


Benton, Joe
Higgins, Rt Hon Sir Terence L.


Blackburn, Dr John G.
Home Robertson, John


Blunkett, David
Howarth, George (Knowsley N)


Body, Sir Richard
Howells, Dr. Kim (Pontypridd)


Bonsor, Sir Nicholas
Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)


Bottomley, Rt Hon Virginia
Hughes, Roy (Newport E)


Boyson, Rt Hon Sir Rhodes
Hutton, John


Bray, Dr Jeremy
Illsley, Eric


Byers, Stephen
Jackson, Glenda (H'stead)


Callaghan, Jim
Jamieson, David


Campbell, Mrs Anne (C'bridge)
Jessel, Toby


Campbell, Ronnie (Blyth V)
Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)


Channon, Rt Hon Paul
Jones, Jon Owen (Cardiff C)


Chisholm, Malcolm
Jones, Lynne (B'ham S O)


Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)
Jowell, Tessa



Clelland, David
Keen, Alan


Cook, Frank (Stockton N)
Kellett-Bowman, Dame Elaine


Cope, Rt Hon Sir John
Kennedy, Jane (Lpool Brdgn)


Corbett, Robin
Khabra, Piara S.


Corbyn, Jeremy
Kilfoyle, Peter


Cormack, Patrick
Knight, Dame Jill (Bir'm E'st'n)


Cousins, Jim
Lester, Jim (Broxtowe)


Cummings, John
Lestor, Joan (Eccles)


Cunningham, Jim (Covy SE)
Lewis, Terry


Dalyell, Tam
Litherland, Robert


Davidson, Ian
Livingstone, Ken


Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)
Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)


Davies, Quentin (Stamford)
Llwyd, Elfyn


Davis, Terry (B'ham, H'dge H'l)
Lord, Michael


Day, Stephen
Loyden, Eddie


Devlin, Tim
Lynne, Ms Liz


Dixon, Don
McAvoy, Thomas


Dobson, Frank
McFall, John


Dover, Den
Mackinlay, Andrew


Enright, Derek
Maclennan, Robert


Etherington, Bill
McNamara, Kevin


Evans, John (St Helens N)
MacShane, Denis


Evans, Jonathan (Brecon)
McWilliam, John


Fatchett, Derek
Madden, Max


Faulds, Andrew
Mahon, Alice


Field, Frank (Birkenhead)
Mans, Keith


Foster, Don (Bath)
Marek, Dr John


Foulkes, George
Marshall, David (Shettleston)


Fraser, John
Marshall, Jim (Leicester, S)


Galbraith, Sam
Martin, Michael J. (Springburn)





Martlew, Eric
Smyth, Rev Martin (Belfast S)


Meacher, Michael
Snape, Peter


Merchant, Piers
Spearing, Nigel


Michael, Alun
Spellar, John


Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley)
Spencer, Sir Derek


Michie, Mrs Ray (Argyll Bute)
Spicer, Sir James (W Dorset)


Milburn, Alan
Spink, Dr Robert


Mitchell, Sir David (Hants NW)
Squire, Rachel (Dunfermline W)


Molyneaux, Rt Hon James
Steinberg, Gerry


Morris, Rt Hon A. (Wy'nshawe)
Sumberg, David


Mudie, George
Taylor, Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)


Murphy, Paul
Taylor, Matthew (Truro)


Neubert, Sir Michael
Thomason, Roy


Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon
Thompson, Jack (Wansbeck)


O'Hara, Edward
Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)


Olner, William
Timms, Stephen


Parry, Robert
Tipping, Paddy



Patchett, Terry
Turner, Dennis


Pawsey, James
Walley, Joan


Pickthall, Colin
Wareing, Robert N


Pike, Peter L.
Waterson, Nigel



Porter, David (Waveney)
Wicks, Malcolm


Powell, Ray (Ogmore)
Wigley, Dafydd


Prentice, Ms Bridget (Lew'm E)
Wilkinson, John


Prescott, John
Williams, Rt Hon Alan (Sw'n W)


Quin, Ms Joyce
Williams, Alan W (Carmarthen)


Raynsford, Nick
Winnick, David


Redmond, Martin
Winterton, Mrs Ann (Congleton)


Rogers, Allan
Winterton, Nicholas (Macc'f'ld)


Sheerman, Barry
Wright, Dr Tony


Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert



Simpson, Alan
Tellers for the Noes:


Skinner, Dennis
Mrs. Llin Golding and


Smith, Andrew (Oxford E)
Mr. William O'Brien.


Smith, C. (Isl'ton S & F'sbury)

Question accordingly agreed to.

Lords amendment No. 8 agreed to.

Lords amendment: No. 9, in page 4, line 46, at end insert—
("(bb ) any shop which is a nursery, garden centre or do-it-yourself home improvement shop, or a combination of these, and where the trade or business carried on consists wholly or mainly of the sale of any one or more of the following—

(i) plants,
(ii) garden supplies and accessories, and
(iii) materials and tools suitable for use in the construction, maintenance, repair or decoration of buildings,")

Mr. Peter Lloyd: I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.

Madam Deputy Speaker: With this it will be convenient to take Lords amendment No. 12.

Mr. Lloyd: We have just debated a group of amendments that made some limited exemptions from the six-hour restrictions on Sunday trading by outlets measuring more than 3,000 sq ft. Lords amendment No. 9, however, would liberate many more outlets from that rule by adding the larger nurseries, garden centres and DIY shops to the exempt category. Again, it is for the House to judge the extent to which it wishes to dilute the large shop-small shop compromise that it reached some months ago; but I draw hon. Members' attention to the questions of definition and enforcement that are involved, as I believe that the answers that they give to those questions should be taken into account in the decision that the House reaches.
I understand that garden centres and DIY shops were linked in the same amendment in another place because its sponsors felt that it was extremely difficult to draw a clear distinction between garden centres—which sell garden furniture, as do many DIY shops—and DIY shops, which sell paving slabs and gravel like many garden centres. Both


often sell lawn mowers, power tools, barbecue equipment and Christmas decorations; indeed, many DIY shops sell plants and shrubs. It would certainly be very hard to distinguish their product ranges at law.
There is also a problem in distinguishing DIY and garden centres clearly from other shops. Many department stores sell garden furniture, power tools and lawn mowers. Many self-styled DIY shops sell flat-pack furniture, kitchen units, carpets, toys, curtains and a range of other products that are commonly found in a large number of shops that do not currently claim to be DIYs. If the amendments were carried, it would not be surprising if some of those other shops claimed quite convincingly that they were DIY shops as well—or hastened to adjust their range of goods to qualify under any definition that might be constructed to distinguish them. I hope, therefore, that the House will consider with care the law enforcement task that they will be placing on local authorities. To work effectively, the law must have sufficient clarity. We all know that the anomalies in the Shops Act 1950 made it difficult for local authorities to apply the law in practice, which led to the law being increasingly flouted. We should take care to ensure that that does not happen again.
Another reason why local authorities became reluctant to try to enforce the Act was that the public increasingly began to feel that it was unfair. The House will thus want to consider whether a DIY shop selling power tools when a department store cannot, or a large garden centre selling pet food, as many do, while a large pet shop must stay shut will be felt to be fair by the public. It is for the House freely to decide who may open and when, but all hon. Members, whatever our views on Sunday shopping and wherever we stand in the spectrum—whether we believe in greater restriction than the Bill would provide or whether we would deregulate entirely—want the law that we finally put on the statute book to be readily enforceable by the local authorities and the courts and to be regarded by the public and the retail trade as reasonable and fair.

Mr. Alton: The Minister's warning is well timed and well made. I hope that hon. Members will recall what he said when they vote. Will he confirm that we are not dealing with small enterprises and businesses, because about a third of DIY shops' output—about £1 billion—is of non-DIY merchandiser? We are not talking about small beer by any means.

Mr. Lloyd: I cannot confirm the figure, but it is substantial. I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention.
If the House does not agree Lords amendment No. 9, with your permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I shall move a manuscript amendment to Lords amendment No. 12 to remove the reference to Lords amendment No. 9.

Ms Joan Ruddock: The Minister has been helpful. Despite being a self-confessed deregulator, he has—perhaps in slightly veiled language, but probably clearly—drawn the House's attention to the dangers of accepting the amendments.
I carefully read the debates in the other place. The amendments were part of a wide group of amendments, of which Lords amendment No. 9 was successful. The debate focused almost entirely on the desirability of activities such as going to garden centres and DIY shops and on leisure activities and how enjoyable they were. There was talk of there being more browsing than buying on such

occasions, which was coupled with dire warnings of loss of trade if restrictions were placed on hours. In that debate, it seemed that, because customers' activities were associated with leisure, all other considerations that had previously applied in debates on the Bill were forgotten.
The proposal appears to have been made without any reference to the way in which the consensus grew in the House in favour of extending Sunday trading. Indeed, a similar consensus had initially been reached in the other place—that the opening hours of large enterprises should be restricted.
As we have heard, those enterprises have the greatest impact on our way of life on a Sunday. They have the greatest impact on staff conditions and terms of employment, on vehicle movements as people shop in them and on the environment because of deliveries and other such factors and because of the noise pollution that is associated with shoppers arriving and leaving in their cars. Both Houses rightly felt that restricting those enterprises to six hours of trading between 10 am and 6 pm on a Sunday was sufficient and that, if any compromise were to be consistent with preserving the special nature of Sunday, there should be only limited exemptions to the provision. I believe that those exemptions are substantial.
I have considerable sympathy with genuine horticulturists. Many small family firms have been in business for a long time and have traded without restrictions on a Sunday. We can well understand how they feel and we question the proposal in the Lords amendments, which did not give exemptions to small family firms of nursery men and women and did not properly explore the question of employee exemptions.
The horticulturists' association has advanced powerful arguments about the seasonal nature of their work, the rural location of businesses and the family interests involved. We cannot, however, properly consider them and weigh the evidence before we vote tonight because the amendments do not offer us a choice. They couple nurseries with garden centres and DIY shops. Many of the enterprises to which the amendments refer are large, are owned by large companies with multiple interests and, in urban areas, are located on sites where there is a combination of a garden centre and a DIY shop.
I vouch for the fact that there is interest in gardening in urban regions. I know how popular garden centres are. Even in urban areas, particularly those in my constituency, many small garden centres are essentially large houses with their own private grounds from which plants are grown and supplied. I remind hon. Members that centres that fall under the 3,000 sq ft restriction will not be caught and that the amendments are not relevant to them. The large centres, which hon. Members will know many examples of and which combine DIY shops with garden centres, posed problems, as the Minister suggested, when drafting the amendments and led to the coupling of the two types of enterprise. That is the weakness of the amendments. Lord Norrie said:
We all know a garden centre and a home improvement store when we see one."—[Official Report, House of Lords, 14 April 1994; Vol. 553, c. 1670.]
We probably do today, but in past decades, the types of stores, the produce that they offer and their selling techniques have changed enormously. We were conscious of that when we looked back to the 1950 Act. We must recognise that there will be changes and diversification and that it will be extremely difficult to distinguish, as it is


already in some cases, DIY shops from other stores or a garden centre that sells many products other than plants and immediately associated goods.
Courts, a high street stores group, sent out a letter, which I am sure all hon. Members received. It talks about DIY stores offering for sale not those items that we use for home improvements, but kitchen items, tables, bunk beds, mattresses, pillows, duvets, cutlery and glassware. That is a huge list, backed up with photographs, so that we can all see how impossible it is to find a definition—or at least, a definition that would stand any reasonable test—of the difference between centres that have primarily DIY goods and those that have a range of very similar products, or the same products, and a lesser range of DIY tools and equipment.
If the amendments were agreed to, they would drive a coach and horses through the Bill. They would totally undermine the regulation, and the policing of that regulation, that the House set in train. Simplicity is at the heart of the Bill, as it was at its heart when it left the House—simplicity based on a size definition, which for all goods and services that are not urgent necessities made a distinction between premises larger than 3,000 sq ft and smaller premises. If we passed the amendment, it would signal a step-by-step move towards total deregulation.
6.30 pm
Let me remind hon. Members that both Houses overwhelmingly rejected total deregulation of Sunday trading. Both Houses also fundamentally endorsed a compromise, in which there would be no restriction on opening for small shops, thus giving them a competitive edge in trading opportunities, but a six-hour limit for larger enterprises. That fundamental compromise not only gained the consent of both Houses, but, as is equally important, was supported by the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers and by the group of major retailers organised into the Shopping Hours Reform Council.
The Lords amendments would fatally undermine the basic premise on which the Bill was constructed—a regulated extension of Sunday trading. For those reasons I shall vote against them, and although I acknowledge that there will be a free vote, I hope that many or all of my colleagues will follow me in opposing amendments that effectively wreck a Bill for which consent in the House was so hard won.

Mrs. Marion Roe: I disagree with the hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Ms Ruddock), and I intend to put the opposite case. Not only am I chairman of the Conservative parliamentary horticulture committee, but for a number of years I have been parliamentary consultant to the Horticultural Trades Association, which represents virtually all the garden centres in the country.
During that time I have come to know the way in which the industry operates. I know the people who work in it and the people who use it. It is a diverse industry : at one end there are the large chains of garden centres, many attached to DIY stores, all of which employ a substantial number of people; at the other end are the small family businesses in which a few people work all the hours that God gives them to make a living out of something that they love, and about which they are passionate.
Another thing that I have learnt is how important garden centres are to the British people. Gardening is the most popular pastime in this country. It knows no social bounds; it is a great leveller; it captivates the wealthy man with his rolling acres and the poor man with his allotment. Every hon. Member has thousands of constituents who earn their living from garden centres, or much of whose leisure time revolves around them.
The Lords amendments, which are designed to exempt garden centres and DIY stores from the six-hour restriction on Sunday opening, are eminently sensible. Let us consider what difference it would make to our Sundays if we agreed to them.

Mr. Alton: The hon. Lady makes a compelling case for garden centres, which would attract huge sympathy and agreement in the House, but in view of the failure to table any other amendments to the Lords amendments, would we not face a problem with the entanglement between the concept of DIY stores, which the hon. Lady mentioned only cursorily, and that of garden centres? Does the hon. Lady agree that as we are not to be given the chance to vote in a way that would distinguish between the two but have to vote for or against both, we are faced with "like it or lump it" amendments?

Mrs. Roe: The hon. Gentleman may have some problems in that connection, and I sympathise with him, but there may be hon. Members on both sides of the House who would be happy for the amendments made by the House of Lords to be agreed to. It is for hon. Members to make their own decisions on the Lords amendments before us.

Mrs. Angela Browning: It has already been said that DIY shops tend to sell flat-pack furniture. Anyone who has ever bought any of that, whether a full kitchen or simply a chest of drawers, cannot but be aware how much DIY that involves—too much, as far as I am concerned. I know that it is not popular in the House to admit that one buys one's own furniture, let alone has to put it together when one gets home, but there is definitely a large element of DIY involved in purchasing the sort of furniture sold in such shops.

Mrs. Roe: I fully agree with my hon. Friend, who has made a valid point.
Let us consider what difference the passing of the amendments would make to our Sundays. I believe that no change whatever would result, and I shall explain why. There would certainly be no need for any more policing; more people would not need to work longer hours, and we would not need to allow any new activities that we have not happily allowed to take place for years. The truth is that the amendments would simply maintain the status quo, and would allow millions of people—our constituents—to carry on doing what they already do on Sundays.
The big question is why on earth the provision was not included in the original compromise option? If the deregulation option had been chosen, garden centres would have been allowed to open, and if the Keep Sunday Special option had won, garden centres would have been exempted, so why did not the compromise between those two extremes include that element, which was acceptable to both? I do not think that anyone knows. It seems to many people that it was a mistake. It is now up to both


Houses to consider and refine the legislation and to correct such mistakes, and that is just what amendment No. 9 would do.
I cannot accept the argument that we should oppose the amendment, not because it is not sensible—obviously it is sensible—but because it goes against some ill-defined principle. I have said what would happen if we agreed to the amendment. Now let us consider what would happen if we opposed it. Who would gain? I cannot think of anyone who would benefit from new restrictions being imposed on garden centres and DIY stores. Not those who work in them—

Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman: Will my hon. Friend give way?

Mrs. Roe: May I move on? Then I shall give way.

Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman: It will be too late then.

Mrs. Roe: Who would gain? Not those who work in them—

Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman: rose—

Mrs. Roe: I am sure that the hon. Lady's -point will be well made, and she will be able to make it in a few moments.
No one would benefit—certainly not those who work or shop in the businesses concerned. So who would lose? That is far more apparent. Many of our constituents would lose—people who own such stores, people who work in them and people who visit them.

Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman: Will my hon. Friend give way now?

Mrs. Roe: If the hon. Lady will give me a few more moments I will give way to her. All of us have thousands of constituents who will suffer if we oppose the amendment just because of some ill-defined principle.

Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman: The hon. Lady said that she could not think of anyone who would lose by the amendment. She obviously does not live near a do-it-yourself shop.

Mrs. Roe: I do.

Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman: The hon. Lady will lose, then. She also knows who will gain if the amendment is defeated—those who live near do-it-yourself shops and who rely on a little peace on Sunday. They will not get it if the amendment is passed.

Mrs. Roe: I actually said that I believed that the status quo was what we wished to achieve. Many people use the garden centres and the DIY stores. If the hon. Lady will give me time, I will show in a moment exactly what happens when the hours are restricted and the sort of reaction that we are likely to find among our constituents.

Sir Kenneth Carlisle: As my hon. Friend knows, I am on the council of the Garden Industries Federation. She was talking about losers. It is clear to me that a group of people who would also lose are those who work in companies, often small companies, manufacturing garden equipment for sale. They would lose because the majority of their sales are made on a Sunday. The biggest

day in the year is Easter Sunday. If we want to maintain employment, we should give a proper outlet to the good products that are made in this country.

Mrs. Roe: My hon. Friend the Member for Lincoln (Sir K. Carlisle) makes a good point and I am grateful for his support. He is extremely knowledgeable in this matter, and I assure the House that he knows what he is talking about.
It is difficult to judge what the customers will think. Most do not yet realise what is going on in Westminster. In Northampton during March this year all the DIY shops and garden centres opened on Sunday only for the hours that would be available to them if we reject the amendment—that is, from 10 am to 4 pm. On those four Sundays, literally thousands of people turned up before 10 am and after 4 pm. They were working in their homes and gardens and they needed equipment and supplies. We must realise that for most working people Sunday is the only day on which they can buy those supplies. More than 6 million people visit garden centres every Sunday. The people in Northampton were amazed and angered at what they found and could not believe that Members of Parliament were considering restricting garden centres and DIY stores. When they were told that restrictions were indeed being considered, many questioned whether Members of Parliament lived in the real world.

Mr. Michael Lord: Will my hon. Friend again acknowledge that many hon. Members have no desire to restrict the Sunday trading of small garden centres? Because of the size limit, many will not be affected. We are talking only about the larger garden centres, which many of us would not want to restrict if they were not linked to DIY centres. As the Lords amendment links the two, however, those of us who are fond of garden centres of all sizes but wish to block the DIY side have no choice but to vote against the amendment.

Mrs. Roe: It is up to my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, Central (Mr. Lord) to make up his own mind on the amendment. I shall support it, and I am explaining to the House why.
The House may think that I exaggerate the effect of imposing new restrictions on garden centres and DIY shops on Sundays. Most garden centres do up to 40 per cent. of their weekly trade on Sunday alone; for DIY stores, the figure is around 30 per cent. Sunday is the most important trading day for them. If we reject the amendment, we shall artificially restrict the busiest day of our constituents' week. Let there be no doubt that if we reject the amendment we shall seriously damage the economic well-being of many of our constituents.
People I have met in the stores ask me what is going on. When I tell them that it is possible that their Sunday hours will be restricted, they cannot believe it. They want to know why we would cut their wages or even put their jobs at risk. To be honest, I do not know what the answer is.
Opposition Front-Bench Members—some of whom, I believe, are sponsored by the Co-operative movement—have persuaded their colleagues to vote against the amendment as a matter of principle. I in no way seek to make a party political point, but I cannot believe that any union really wants to inflict unemployment and reduced wages on workers, many of whom are union members, for absolutely no practical point.
6.45 pm
I have heard three arguments against the amendment. First, it is said that as a matter of principle we should not amend the agreed compromise. I have already shown that that argument is not valid. The chosen option is a compromise between two other options, both of which exempted garden centres. The omission of such stores from the option is a mistake. Without the amendment, the Bill will be a bad piece of legislation. It is our role and our duty to correct that mistake.
Secondly, I have heard it said that it will be difficult to police the exemption. But the exemption maintains the status quo, so the amendment will impose no greater burden on authorities than already exists. Thirdly, I hear it said that the amendment will allow unscrupulous retailers to get around the general six-hour rule by pretending to be a garden centre or DIY store. At a considerable stretch of the imagination, one might suppose that that could happen, but any sensible person looking at the matter objectively would soon realise that it simply would not happen. The amendment is so drafted that in the event of any dispute the onus is on the retailer to prove to a magistrate, first, that the store is a garden centre or DIY store and, secondly, that it sells wholly or mainly the prescribed goods. That double hurdle is a staunch test. Moreover, as all stores will be able to open for up to six hours on Sunday anyway, such a retailer is unlikely to risk a £50 fine just to open for an extra hour or two on a Sunday. In practice it will never happen, just as it has not happened under the current system.
I have been asked why DIY stores and garden centres are linked in the amendment. The answer is simple: in practice, there are inextricable links between the two types of store. Improving one's home is exactly the same sort of activity as improving one's garden. Many garden centres sell DIY items and most DIY stores have garden centres. The two types of store are a distinct sector of retailing and they cannot and should not be separated.
I understand that no party has whipped against the amendment tonight, so it is up to us to make up our own minds. That is how it was in the Lords. Indeed, the Labour peer Baroness Nicol, a staunch supporter of the Keep Sunday Special campaign, actually spoke in favour of the amendment. The choice is between some unfounded fears and an ill-defined principle on the one hand and the well-being of our constituents on the other. If hon. Members vote against the amendment, people will lose their jobs and their established leisure activities. Every hon. Member who votes against the amendment will be directly blamed by his or her constituents. I cannot believe that we can seriously consider forcing our garden centres and DIY stores to close on the very day when they are most active. As we already know, most people find it difficult to understand much of what we do in this remote Chamber; they will be totally incredulous if we vote today to close their garden centres and DIY stores.

Mr. A. J. Beith: The hon. Member for Broxbourne (Mrs. Roe) is plain wrong about the Lords amendment that she supports. It is simply not the case that passing the amendment would preserve the status quo in DIY stores. The status quo in DIY stores is that a large proportion of the trading that goes on is illegal. The Bill will make it legal to trade for a set number of hours on a Sunday. The status quo does not enable do-it-yourself stores to trade for unlimited hours on a Sunday. Those which do so are breaking the law and some of them are

now facing quite large fines, which do not bother them very much because large fines to them were an engine for achieving a change in the law. Now, they ride on the backs of garden centres and hope to obtain unlimited trading on Sundays in stores in which a large part of the trade is not in DIY goods at all. They rely on the hon. Lady's genuine arguments on behalf of garden centres to obtain for them what they have been seeking all the time. They first tried the bully-boy tactics of hoping that, by simply breaking the law, they could get their way. They then appeared to support compromise measures, which have been carried through the House, and, finally, they overturned those compromises in favour of complete deregulation on Sundays. We in this House would be behaving quite unreasonably if we allowed anybody to get away with such tactics.
I have great sympathy with those garden centres which want to continue their present activities, but the proper course for those who feel that it requires amendment of the Bill as it originally left the House would be to seek amendment to the Lords amendments so as to narrow down the Bill and achieve that effect. Even then, we are talking only about larger garden centres and larger numbers of hours than the six hours which will be allowed in any event. The House must decide whether it is prepared to bring the issue of unlimited trading back into the high street. We are talking not only about the garden centre which is outside the main centre of population, but the DIY store in the high street and, even more, the DIY store in the shopping complex, which is putting the high street out of business. We are talking about the ability of those who have already posed a threat to the traditional high street to have unlimited trading on Sundays.
I urge hon. Members to heed the warnings from both Front Benches. It must be the first time that, during the proceedings of this Bill, I find myself in such substantial agreement with the Minister and the Opposition Front-Bench spokesman and spokeswoman. On different points, they referred to the dangers which will arise if we allow the Lords amendment to stand.

Mr. Peter L. Pike: Is not it a fact that, in a year's time, if the amendment is allowed to stand as the Lords have agreed, we shall almost certainly hear electrical stores complaining that it is quite wrong that a DIY store may sell exactly what they are not allowed to sell in those extended hours? We shall therefore be asked, almost straightaway, to move further away and add further exclusions to the restrictions in the Bill.

Mr. Beith: That is absolutely right. One may almost say that anomalies are being prepared for the next stage of argument about anomalies. We have all seen the way in which the anomalies argument has been used in the Sunday trading issue to cast doubt on the propriety of obeying the law as it stands and to argue for changes in the law. Now, we shall see new anomalies built in to pave the way for further changes to the law beyond the compromise for which the House voted. It was not the compromise that I wanted. I wanted a more restrictive approach to Sunday trading, for reasons which other hon. Members have cited. As my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Mossley Hill (Mr. Alton) and the hon. Member for Broxbourne said, it drives a coach and horses through that compromise and brings back the whole issue of unregulated trading. Anyone who walks into Texas, or B and Q or any of the


large DIY stores can see that they are general stores, selling a wide range of merchandise—£1 billion of merchandise other than DIY goods. They shall be putting themselves in the unfair trading position that they have wanted all along if they secure the benefit of the amendment.
Therefore, I urge all hon. Members, especially those who have supported the Shopping Hours Reform Council and its proposals, to resist the amendment, which makes nonsense of everything that has been done up to now.

Mrs. Browning: I am pleased to have an opportunity to support the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Mrs. Roe). Like her, I, too, support the Lords amendments. I have a particular interest in garden centres since, in my constituency, a large garden centre is a major employer in east Devon—Otter Nurseries, which is known throughout the county of Devon. It started off as, arid still is, a family business run by Mr. and Mrs. White. Over the years, they have developed their business and their reputation and now employ some 160 people, including 65 people who are employed on a Sunday. Such is the nature of their business that people arrange coach trips to visit the garden centre. I visited it myself on a Sunday. I am aware how popular it is, early in the morning as well as late on a Sunday afternoon.
The economy of my constituency, especially the east Devon part, will be severely affected if the trading hours of that garden centre were to be restricted. As my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne pointed out, the Shops Act 1950 permitted garden centres to sell produce—as they did—to motor accessory stores and farm shops. Therefore, restrictions on large garden centres such as Otter Nurseries would not enhance its ability to provide jobs or to provide a service to the public. It would detract from what it is already able to do under the law. It would be most unfortunate if the Bill, which is looking to free the market place more on a Sunday, adversely affected something such as a large garden centre. By garden centres and home improvement stores opening on a Sunday, their popularity with the public has become apparent.
Listening to some of the speeches from both sides of the House, I wonder about the argument that, if a DIY store were to open, it would be unfair competition to the regular furniture stores. DIY stores are not Harrods, delivering its cabinet furniture, delivered by two gentlemen wearing gloves. DIY stores sell a totally different range of furniture, as I pointed out in an intervention. Also, garden centres—

Mrs. Peacock: Will my hon. Friend give way?

Mrs. Browning: May I finish this point and then I shall give way? Garden furniture or patio furniture is becoming increasingly popular. I recently had great difficulty in finding a couple of chairs with cushions on them in furniture stores in my constituency. The only place that I could buy them and be offered a choice was at Otter Nurseries in my constituency. Therefore, the idea that garden centres are selling Chippendale cabinets and putting Courts and other furniture companies out of business is somewhat unfounded. I wonder how many hon. Members put their own furniture together or do their own decorating, rather than have a little man come in to do it. I suspect that it is not that many.

Mrs. Peacock: My hon. Friend mentioned furniture. I have here four photographs. Three are of DIY stores, all

selling pine furniture, and the fourth is of a furniture store selling pine furniture. Three stores would be allowed to open and one would not. What is her answer to that?

Mrs. Browning: Like my hon. Friend, I have also received those photographs. However, she will be aware that DIY stores require people to move their furniture home. There is a great difference between furniture shops, which offer a delivery service to their customers, and shops from where customers are prepared to struggle, with roof racks or rented vans, to take their furniture home themselves. I have studied those photographs very carefully and I have been round DIY stores, garden centres and furniture stores to see the way in which they market merchandise and there is a distinct difference between what happens to one as a customer when a purchase of furniture is made from a DIY store and what happens when one goes into a regular furniture retail outlet.

Sir Harold Walker: Characteristically, a large trading estate sites Do It All, Allied Carpets, MFI and B and Q cheek by jowl. The hon. Lady is proposing that Do It All and B and Q should be allowed to open when we are telling Allied Carpets and MFI to shut shop. Allied Carpets sells carpets identical with those on sale at B and Q, which can be delivered. Doubtless, those carpets will be sold after 4 o'clock, when we will have told Allied to stop trading. Can she defend that?

Mrs. Browning: Yes, I can, because the right hon. Gentleman is referring to a very small number of ranges in which there is an overlap of interest. If one goes into a DIY store, one can see immediately whether it is a DIY store or a furniture store. There is certainly an overlap in certain ranges, but in the sort of DIY stores that have been mentioned tonight, such as Texas, one can see that it is a DIY store. The floor area is predominantly devoted to a whole range of things, from plumbing materials to decorating materials to paints and so on. The other lines that such stores carry are subsidiary lines. If we were to start precluding shops from opening simply because of an overlap of a small number of lines, it would be a great pity. In a way, it is a pity that we have not been able to separate the DIY interest from garden centres as I have a constituency interest with regard to garden centres. I would hate garden centres to be penalised simply because of the arguments against DIY stores trading.
Garden centres offer a much wider range of choice of services. In addition to plants, garden centres offer facilities for garden design. People enjoy going to Otter Nurseries for lunch or for tea in the afternoon. It is a whole-person experience. I would hate that whole-person experience to be restricted from 10 am to 4 pm. More seriously, there would be a grave effect on east Devon in my constituency. Many of my constituents would be disappointed about that, and I trust that the House will accept the Lords amendment and reject the opposition to it that has been voiced tonight.

7 pm

Mr. Ray Powell: I have listened to some of the arguments about garden centres and DIY stores and have tried to separate them. The difficulty when I presented my private Member's Bill was whether we should include garden centres or DIY stores. We listened to the arguments


and agreed in Committee that we would accept the argument for garden centres to open, but on a restricted timetable.
Garden centres are ideal in April when we want to buy our plants to plant out. They are ideal in May, June, July and August when we see the lovely shrubs and flowers and when we can make a special garden from the flowers and plants that we can buy from garden centres. However, have you visited a garden centre in October, November or December, Mr. Deputy Speaker? If you visit one in December, you will find that it sells all sorts of Christmas decorations, toys and, as one would expect, Christmas trees. It will also sell deck chairs which can be bought as presents for the summer.
There is a garden centre in Pyle in a constituency near mine which sells all the types of furniture that one can buy in a DIY store. It would also be possible to buy a swimming pool on a Sunday from that garden centre, at whatever time one cared to visit it.
Arguments were raised in the Committee that examined my private Member's Bill to such an extent that the Committee agreed to include garden centres in my Bill. Before agreement was reached in that Committee, there was pressure from the DIY stores. It was argued then that if we allowed garden centres to open because gardening is a very popular hobby, we should not deny people who want to visit DIY stores to buy shelving or to buy goods to repair or decorate their homes. The arguments were such that we agreed to include DIY stores.
Of course, since 1986, the Government have been dragging their feet in respect of Sunday trading and the Shops Act 1950 despite the fact that DIY retailers were making millions of pounds at the expense of other retailers because the 1950 Act was not imposed on those who were breaking the law.
Nevertheless, we decided to include DIY stores in my Bill. However, because of the lack of time and the lack of Government and some Opposition support, my Bill fell. I had been lucky—if one can call it that—to come third in the ballot and seemed to have plenty of time for my legislation. Indeed, it had received plenty of support.
At that time, the Government were prepared to allow my Committee to do the spadework and to prepare a Bill so that, after stopping my Bill, they could step in and have a ready-prepared Bill themselves. When the Government introduced their Bill, they made many promises about partial deregulation.
We all accept that the debate about the future of Sunday trading has produced sharp divisions between retailers and consumers and within the general community. However, all have been united on one principle—the new law must be effective. As the Home Secretary said on Second Reading when he introduced the Bill:
We want the option to work in practice and to command the respect throughout the country which the current regime sadly lacks."—[Official Report, 29 November 1993; Vol. 233, c. 818.]
Much was made of the claim for the option chosen, although it was not my choice. It was said that it was relatively simple and straightforward. Large shops of more than 280 sq m were permitted to trade for up to six hours, with unrestricted trading for small shops plus a limited number of special categories. Left alone, that at least offered the prospect of an end to the anarchy in the high street which has offended so many people in recent years.
However, there was always a fear that certain retailers, indeed the very ones who had broken the existing law for longest and gained most from doing so, would continue to put self-interest before principle. Therefore, it is not particularly surprising, although it is regrettable, that the moment the ink was dry on the six-hour option formula which they had supported so vocally as the compromise option, the DIY and garden centre retailers were lobbying to gain exemption from that formula.
The DIY chains were a major force in the Shopping Hours Reform Council which lobbied for the six-hour option. A director of B and Q was seconded from that business to be deputy director of the SHRC.
In seeking exemption from the formula which they had designed, the DIY and garden centre lobbies have had a problem. It is not enough for them that they should be allowed to sell just goods for decorating the home and for gardening. That is no longer the nature of their business. Major DIY chains sell furniture, kitchens, lighting, telephones, small electrical items, blinds and carpets. Some of the most recent businesses to open have extended the list to furnishing fabrics, linens, large electrical goods, gifts, pictures and mirrors, china, glassware and cutlery. Between a quarter and a third of their sales may be in non-DIY goods.
In 1993, the Central Statistical Office published an analysis of sales by DIY shops in 1990 which showed that non-DIY merchandise then accounted for more than £1 billion—nearly 28 per cent.—of the retail sales of all DIY businesses. The source for that is Business Monitor SDA 25 Retailing 1990. That is broadly comparable in size to the total—all merchandise—of national sales for that year of John Lewis department stores, House of Fraser including Harrods, Debenhams, Dixons UK, Storehouse including British Home Stores, Habitat and Mothercare, and Argos.
In short, large DIY shops, and to a lesser extent garden centres, have become general traders in a wide range of goods. Therefore, they made representations to hon. Members that they should be allowed to trade without restriction if they are open wholly or mainly for the sale of DIY or gardening merchandise.
What does "wholly or mainly" mean? Much was made in the debate in another place of the view that Parliament should have confidence in the good sense of the courts. One of their Lordships indicated that the words "wholly or mainly" had been considered in revenue law where it means 90 per cent. But none of those who wish to permit unrestricted opening of DIY shops and garden centres can believe that that interpretation would apply here because few, if any, would qualify on that basis.
Moreover, the courts may be expected to show good sense that they, can only implement the law passed by Parliament. Mr. Charles Flint, the Treasury counsel, said in an opinion that
the effect of the current draft is that a DIY shop could lawfully sell a wide range of supplies, going beyond those to be used in the construction, maintenance, repair or decoration of the structure of dwellings, and the amount of such non-DIY supplies could amount to a substantial proportion of the sales made by the shop.
Furthermore, he says that
as this is a criminal statute any ambiguity in interpretation will lead to it being considered in favour of a defendant who is prosecuted…the test of wholly or mainly must permit the shopkeeper to open the shop for a subsidiary purpose such as the sale of non-qualifying goods, even if that subsidiary purpose is not ancillary to the principal purpose of selling qualified goods; thus the shopkeeper who opens a shop for the principal purpose


of selling DIY goods could lawfully sell any other type of goods.
That is the legal interpretation. We are all interested in the law, so we all understand that.
That raises again the question asked in another place but not answered by anyone. A large modern DIY store has anything up to 90,000 sq ft of selling space. What is to stop B and Q from diverting 40 per cent. or more of its space to merchandise from its sister business, Comet? By the same score, it would be technically possible for a Sainsbury-owned Homebase to incorporate a food supermarket within its perimeter. If branches of Comet traded for more than six hours because they were sited within the perimeter of B and Q shops, how would their Lordships expect the chairman of Dixons—and the owners of Dixons and Currys—to react? What would they expect local authorities to do to restrain Currys, which had opened illegally for more than six hours?
That is the argument. How will we enforce a restriction of six hours on DIY stores and garden centres which are blatantly trading, despite the Shops Act 1950 and despite breaking the law of Parliament? They are exploiting their position. How will we control them, and how will we ensure that the law that is passed is enforced?
These are not fancifully speculative considerations. Anyone who has observed the length to which some DIY traders have gone recently to exploit the loopholes in the current law cannot be sanguine about the use to which new loopholes may be put if they are allowed to remain in the Bill. Unless the amendment is rejected, the Bill will remain fatally flawed.
Since 1986, some of us, including the hon. Member for Liverpool, Mossley Hill (Mr. Alton), have spent a lot of time discussing the Bill and the anomalies. I am sure that we do not want to see a flawed Bill being accepted tonight. I hope that many hon. Members will join me in the Lobby to vote against it.
I am sponsored by the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers. I am not a consultant for any other union—as a matter of fact, I am not really a consultant for USDAW—[Interruption.] At least I still have my membership, unlike one of my colleagues on the Labour Front Bench—I shall not mention names. I received a letter dated 13 June from the deputy general secretary of USDAW. I shall read the final paragraph so that hon. Members clearly understand that I am on the union's side and I shall be going into whichever Lobby the union wants me to. USDAW is interested in ensuring that there is work for its employees, whether it be during the week or on a Sunday, but it still wants a restriction of six hours for its members who work in DIY stores and garden centres.
7.15 pm
The letter states:
USDAW, therefore, calls upon"—
all Members of Parliament—
to oppose the amendments in respect of Do-It-Yourself Stores and large Garden Centres, to ensure that the six hour compromise which has been accepted by both Houses is not undermined by belated opportunism.
We all accept that. I cannot understand where the deputy general secretary got the phrase "belated opportunism", because USDAW was a party to destroying the whole idea that we should reject the Bill as it presently stands.
I am pleased to hear the Minister say that at last he supports a Lords amendment which will totally destroy all the promises that he and the Government made about the six-hour compromise. Many Opposition Members fell into

the trap of thinking that the six-hour compromise was the solution to the problem. After arguing the matter in 1986, we defeated the Thatcher Government and their proposals for total deregulation by a mere 14 votes. When they had a majority of 140, it was quite an achievement to defeat them by 14 votes.
I am sure that many people will complain about the fact that Sunday has become an ordinary day of the week. There is an opportunity for the House to limit at least some part of Sunday trading by restricting garden centres and DIY stores. I hope that those who are responsible for DIY stores will ensure that the six-hour restriction is maintained. If not, I hope that the Government and local authorities will ensure that heavy fines are imposed. I hope that all hon. Members will join me and my colleagues in voting down these Lords amendments.

Mr. Tim Devlin: My contribution will be brief. Before their Lordships got their hands on the Bill, it had three main advantages which I would commend to the Government for inclusion in all future legislation: it was fair, simple and enforceable. It was easy for people to understand, it was fair to everyone and it was simple and enforceable for local authorities.
The position which their Lordships want to push forward in the amendment is to enable two groups of shops—garden centres and DIY stores, and in some cases shops which are both—to have extra hours on a Sunday because some of their customers cannot be bothered to get up early in the morning, or perhaps they want to continue gardening or DIY-ing late into the night.
If one goes round the DIY stores and garden centres on a Sunday, as I have done recently in my area, one will find that they sell such diverse things as furniture, carpets, sweets, food, newspapers, pets, pet food, car parts, bicycles, sports goods, sports shoes, video and music cassettes, crockery, electrical goods and a variety of other items. We are effectively saying that a DIY store or garden centre can sell those goods on Sundays when other shops will not be allowed to sell them and that cannot be fair.
Secondly, we are being asked to support an amendment that states:
any shop which is a nursery, garden centre or do-it-yourself home improvement shop, or a combination of these, and where the trade or business carried on consists wholly or mainly of the sale of any one or more of the following".
I must declare an interest as I am a barrister and if this amendment is agreed it will create much work for me and my colleagues. Major DIY stores will spend a great deal of money on my colleagues sorting out in court what the phrase "consists wholly or mainly" means. So, in five years' time we will be back in the House reconsidering the Sunday trading legislation in the light of a host of anomalies. I remind the House that that is why we legislated on the matter in the first place.
The third question is that of enforceability. What will happen when local authorities check on DIY stores, such as Dixons, Currys or anyone who decides to start selling DIY or garden materials? What about a furniture store that starts to sell deck chairs? Is it "wholly or mainly" involved in plants, garden supplies and accessories, or is it a furniture store that has a subsidiary interest? Enforcement will become a minefield.
I strongly recommend that hon. Members stick with what the House decided, which was that we wanted a simple, enforceable and easily comprehensible solution.

Mr. Pike: It is very rare that I agree with the hon. Member for Stockton, South (Mr. Devlin), but I certainly do tonight and I strongly underline his comments.
Like my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Mr. Powell), I have taken a different line from that in the Bill and from the compromise agreed during our earlier debates in the House. I did not believe that we should support the Shopping Hours Reform Council compromise, but ultimately it was carried. It got a majority in the House and, eventually, in the other place, but almost immediately an attempt was made to make a major breach in that compromise. Although I did not support it, one has to accept that the people who advocated it outlined certain principles—it could be easily understood and enforced and would not create fortunes for barristers interpreting exactly what it meant.
The hon. Member for Broxbourne (Mrs. Roe) got it completely wrong when she spoke of the status quo. Why should we talk about the status quo for certain people—people who in some cases have chosen to break the law for some considerable time? The House will know that I have said on many occasions that in this country we do not break the law if we want to change it. We believe in doing so through democratic means.

Mrs. Roe: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will accept that garden centres were legally selling the items covered by the Shops Act 1950. I was referring to that fact when I mentioned the status quo.

Mr. Pike: I accept the hon. Lady's point, but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore said, DIY stores were the first deliberately to challenge existing legislation by breaking it and they have been doing so for a long time. Then other stores, such as Sainsbury and Tesco, thought that if the DIY stores were getting away with it, why should they not challenge the law? Now this Bill is going through Parliament.
I am sure that right hon. and hon. Members hope that, whatever side we were on at an earlier stage, we will not have to debate the issue again next year or the year after. One would hope that the Bill will at least stand, be enforceable and be observed, despite my reservations.
I have strong reservations about whether some people will observe the six-hour limit. I have grave doubts whether Sainsbury or other stores will abide by that rule. Initially, they will do so, but I fear that in a few years' time they will break it. If we allow Lords amendment No. 9 to stand, we are asking for such stores to challenge and break the law because they will rightly be able to ask, "Why should others be able to get away with it, if we are not allowed to do so? Why should there be a difference and why are they put in an exclusive bracket?"
My hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore spoke ably on the DIY aspect. DIY shops will look closely at what they are selling and may well choose to include even more excluded products, as long as they still meet the criteria of "mainly". For the Bill to state "wholly or mainly" leaves the outcome wide open. Stores might well decide to sell other goods because the profit margins are better. They could change their stock to get around the law, if they are put in the privileged position that would result if we agreed to Lords amendment No. 9.
We accepted a compromise and it would be wrong for the House to accept the Lords amendment. We should

reject it, because it is a serious breach of the principle that we agreed a few months ago and it would be wrong to breach that principle.
I genuinely believe that if we pass the amendment we will be asked in 12 months' time to put superstores such as Sainsbury and Tesco in the same bracket, and then some other store a year later. The result will be total deregulation and all that that means, which is what I feared was many people's ultimate objective.
People will be able to do the shopping that they want to do during the six-hour period on a Sunday between 10 am and 4 pm. If they want to go to Sainsbury, Tesco or whatever the store happens to be—perhaps Pioneer, the Co-op superstore in my constituency, which opens on a Sunday—or to do some gardening or DIY, most people will be able to ensure that they go to the garden centre or DIY store between 10 am and 4 pm. Those stores will not lose any money if the amendment is rejected. If the trade is there, they will get it. It will merely mean that people have to shop between 10 am and 6 pm. [HON. MEMBERS: "Four!"] I am sorry and thank my hon. Friends for correcting me; it was a slip of the tongue. People will be able to organise their day and ensure that they get the plants that they want to plant or the piece of furniture that they want to put together. That is perfectly reasonable and, therefore, we should reject the Lords amendment.

Mr. Michael Alison: The hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Ms Ruddock), who spoke for the Opposition, ended her speech with a reference to a letter that she had received from a group of stores or shops. In my brief contribution, I shall echo that precedent by referring to a letter that I received from my friend Stephen May, who is one of the directors of the John Lewis Partnership.
I have no interest to declare in that partnership, other than that of being a fairly regular customer, but my friend makes an important point in recording that the John Lewis Partnership was certainly not an advocate of the six-hour option, but heard the House's judgment that it wanted something clear and simple. Lords amendment No. 9 would wreck that clarity and simplicity. It abandons the simple distinction between deregulation for small shops and six hours' trading for large shops by allowing large DIY stores and large garden centres to trade when they like. It introduces what I feel is grossly unfair competition in respect of the huge volume of non-DIY or gardening goods which those types of outlets can sell.
7.30 pm
The simple point which I want to leave with my colleagues is the extent to which the competition is unfair, and this is not a trivial matter. The sales of non-DIY goods in DIY businesses are more than the sales of all merchandise sold in John Lewis department stores, Debenhams or Argos. It would mean that a washing machine could be sold by a Comet section within a B and Q, but not in a Currys, and a carpet could be sold in Texas, but not in a carpet store.
If amendment No. 9 stands, we shall be plunged back into anomalies, with shops pretending to be one thing when they are actually another and loopholes being exploited for commercial advantage. The law would be unclear as well as unfair, and clarity and fairness were certainly two of the major objectives which were secured and aimed at by the six-hour option that the House has adopted. I hope very much that the attempt to moderate, modify or change the


system with the clear and reasonably fair principle with which the Bill left the House will not now be undermined by the acceptance of the Lords amendment No. 9.

Mr. Couchman: I have listened carefully to the arguments from the hon. Members for Ogmore (Mr. Powell) and for Burnley (Mr. Pike), and for once I find myself in agreement with them.
It is worth offering to the House the view of the chairman of the Shopping Hours Reform Council, Baroness Jay. She believes that, as the proposers of the six-hour option, the council does not support any changes which threaten that compromise. The Bill as drafted achieved a successful and careful balance between the concerns of consumers, citizens and employees, and she states that that balance was difficult to construct.
While Baroness Jay believes that there may be room for some adjustments—I think she probably means the issues that were settled in the previous group of amendments—she states that the council cannot support exemptions that may damage its integrity and standing.
The six-hour option first saw the light of day in my name in a private Member's Bill which was introduced on the Order Paper on the same day as the Bill of the hon. Member for Ogmore. It is impossible for me to support amendment No. 9. I regret very much the fact that small garden centres in particular have found themselves tangled up in the amendment with the big do-it-yourself shops. I was under absolutely no doubt that the owners of the big do-it-yourself stores, recognising that total deregulation would not find favour with the House, were content to accept the six-hour option. I regret that we have been faced with this amendment at all, and I for one will seek to disagree with the Lords.

Question put, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment:—

The House divided: Ayes 160, Noes 293.

Division No. 270]
[7.33 pm


AYES


Aitken, Jonathan
Coe, Sebastian


Allason, Rupert (Torbay)
Colvin, Michael


Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)
Conway, Derek


Arnold, Sir Thomas (Hazel Grv)
Coombs, Anthony (Wyre For'st)


Ashby, David
Coombs, Simon (Swindon)


Aspinwall, Jack
Currie, Mrs Edwina (S D'by'ire)


Atkins, Robert
Davies, Ron (Caerphilly)


Atkinson, Peter (Hexham)
Davis, David (Boothferry)


Austin-Walker, John
Deva, Nirj Joseph


Baldry, Tony
Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James


Beresford, Sir Paul
Duncan, Alan


Betts, Clive
Duncan-Smith, Iain


Biffen, Rt Hon John
Eggar, Tim


Bonsor, Sir Nicholas
Elletson, Harold


Bottomley, Peter (Eltham)
Evans, David (Welwyn Hatfield)


Bottomley, Rt Hon Virginia
Evans, Nigel (Ribble Valley)


Boyes, Roland
Faber, David


Brandreth, Gyles
Field, Barry (Isle of Wight)


Bright, Graham
Flynn, Paul


Browning, Mrs. Angela
Fox, Dr Liam (Woodspring)


Bruce, Ian (S Dorset)
Fraser, John


Budgen, Nicholas
French, Douglas


Butler, Peter
Gardiner, Sir George


Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)
Garnier, Edward


Cann, Jamie
Gilbert, Rt Hon Dr John


Carlisle, Sir Kenneth (Lincoln)
Gillan, Cheryl


Carttiss, Michael
Goodlad, Rt Hon Alastair


Cash, William
Gorman, Mrs Teresa


Chidgey, David
Gorst, Sir John


Clappison, James
Greenway, John (Ryedale)


Clarke, Rt Hon Kenneth (Ruclif)
Hamilton, Rt Hon Sir Archie


Clifton-Brown, Geoffrey
Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)





Hargreaves, Andrew
Oppenheim, Phillip


Haselhurst, Alan
Ottaway, Richard


Hawkins, Nick
Page, Richard


Hawksley, Warren
Pickles, Eric


Hayes, Jerry
Portillo, Rt Hon Michael


Heathcoat-Amory, David
Redwood, Rt Hon John


Henderson, Doug
Rendel, David


Hicks, Robert
Renton, Rt Hon Tim


Hodge, Margaret
Richards, Rod


Horam, John
Riddick, Graham


Howarth, Alan (Strat'rd-on-A)
Robinson, Mark (Somerton)


Hughes Robert G. (Harrow W)
Roe, Mrs Marion (Broxbourne)


Jack, Michael
Rooker, Jeff


Jenkin, Bernard
Rumbold, Rt Hon Dame Angela


Jones, Lynne (B'ham S O)
Ryder, Rt Hon Richard


Jones, Nigel (Cheltenham)
Sackville, Tom


Jones, Robert B. (W Hertfdshr)
Scott, Rt Hon Nicholas


Key, Robert
Shaw, David (Dover)


Kirkwood, Archy
Shaw, Sir Giles (Pudsey)


Knight, Greg (Derby N)
Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)


Knox, Sir David
Sims, Roger


Kynoch, George (Kincardine)
Skeet, Sir Trevor


Lait, Mrs Jacqui
Soames, Nicholas



Lang, Rt Hon Ian
Sproat, Iain


Lawrence, Sir Ivan
Stern, Michael


Legg, Barry
Stewart, Allan


Leigh, Edward
Strang, Dr. Gavin


Lennox-Boyd, Mark
Sykes, John


Lidington, David
Taylor, John M. (Solihull)


Luff, Peter
Temple-Morris, Peter


Lyell, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas
Thompson, Sir Donald (C'er V)


MacKay, Andrew
Thurnham, Peter


McLoughlin, Patrick
Townsend, Cyril D. (Bexl'yh'th)


McNair-Wilson, Sir Patrick
Trend, Michael


Madel, Sir David
Twinn, Dr Ian


Malone, Gerald
Vaughan, Sir Gerard


Marland, Paul
Viggers, Peter


Maxton, John
Waldegrave, Rt Hon William


Moate, Sir Roger
Walker, Bill (N Tayside)


Monro, Sir Hector
Ward, John


Montgomery, Sir Fergus
Waterson, Nigel


Moonie, Dr Lewis
Watts, John


Morley, Elliot
Wells, Bowen


Morris, Estelle (B'ham Yardley)
Wheeler, Rt Hon Sir John


Moss, Malcolm


Whitney, Ray


Mowlam, Marjorie
Willetts, David


Nelson, Anthony



Newton, Rt Hon Tony
Tellers for the Ayes:


Nicholls, Patrick
Mr. Michael Fabricant and


O'Neill, Martin
Mr. Michael Brown.


NOES


Abbott, Ms Diane
Boateng, Paul


Adams, Mrs Irene
Body, Sir Richard


Ainsworth, Peter (East Surrey)
Booth, Hartley


Ainsworth, Robert (Cov'try NE)
Boswell, Tim


Alison, Rt Hon Michael (Selby)
Boyson, Rt Hon Sir Rhodes


Allen, Graham
Bradley, Keith


Amess, David
Bray, Dr Jeremy


Anderson, Donald (Swansea E)

Brazier, Julian


Anderson, Ms Janet (Ros'dale)
Brown, N. (N'c'tle upon Tyne E)


Arbuthnot, James
Burns, Simon


Ashton, Joe
Byers, Stephen


Baker, Nicholas (Dorset North)
Callaghan, Jim


Banks, Matthew (Southport)
Campbell, Mrs Anne (C'bridge)


Barnes, Harry
Campbell, Ronnie (Blyth V)


Barron, Kevin

Carlile, Alexander (Montgomry)


Bates, Michael
Carrington, Matthew


Battle, John
Channon, Rt Hon Paul


Bayley, Hugh
Chapman, Sydney


Beckett, Rt Hon Margaret
Chisholm, Malcolm


Beith, Rt Hon A. J.
Church, Judith


Bendall, Vivian
Churchill, Mr


Benn, Rt Hon Tony
Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)


Bennett, Andrew F.
Clarke, Eric (Midlothian)


Benton, Joe
Clelland, David


Bermingham, Gerald
Cook, Frank (Stockton N)


Blackburn, Dr John G.
Cook, Robin (Livingston)


Blair, Tony
Cope, Rt Hon Sir John


Blunkett, David
Corbett, Robin






Corbyn, Jeremy
Hughes, Roy (Newport E)


Couchman, James
Hunt, Sir John (Ravensbourne)


Cousins, Jim
Illsley, Eric


Cummings, John
Jackson, Glenda (H'stead)


Cunningham, Jim (Covy SE)
Jackson, Helen (Shef'ld, H)


Curry, David (Skipton & Ripon)
Jackson, Robert (Wantage)


Dalyell, Tam
Jamieson, David


Darling, Alistair
Jessel, Toby


Davidson, Ian
Johnson Smith, Sir Geoffrey


Davies, Bryan (Oldham C'tral)
Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)


Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)
Jones, Jon Owen (Cardiff C)


Davies, Quentin (Stamford)
Jones, Martyn (Clwyd, SW)


Davis, Terry (B'ham, H'dge H'l)
Jowell, Tessa


Day, Stephen
Keen, Alan


Denham, John
Kellett-Bowman, Dame Elaine


Devlin, Tim
Khabra, Piara S.


Dewar, Donald
Kilfoyle, Peter


Dicks, Terry
King, Rt Hon Tom


Dixon, Don
Kirkhope, Timothy


Dover, Den
Knight, Mrs Angela (Erewash)


Dowd, Jim
Knight, Dame Jill (Bir'm E'st'n)


Dunn, Bob
Lester, Jim (Broxtowe)


Dunnachie, Jimmy
Lestor, Joan (Eccles)


Durant, Sir Anthony
Lewis, Terry


Enright, Derek
Lightbown, David


Etherington, Bill
Litherland, Robert


Evans, John (St Helens N)
Livingstone, Ken


Evans, Jonathan (Brecon)
Lloyd, Rt Hon Peter (Fareham)


Fatchett, Derek
Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)


Faulds, Andrew
Llwyd, Elfyn


Field, Frank (Birkenhead)
Lord, Michael


Fisher, Mark
Loyden, Eddie


Forman, Nigel
Lynne, Ms Liz


Foster, Rt Hon Derek
McAvoy, Thomas


Foster, Don (Bath)
Macdonald, Calum


Foulkes, George
McFall, John


Freeman, Rt Hon Roger
Mackinlay, Andrew


Fry, Sir Peter
Maclean, David


Galbraith, Sam
Maclennan, Robert


Gale, Roger
McNamara, Kevin


Gapes, Mike
MacShane, Denis


Garrett, John
McWilliam, John


George, Bruce
Madden, Max


Godman, Dr Norman A.
Mahon, Alice


Godsiff, Roger
Maitland, Lady Olga


Golding, Mrs Llin
Mandelson, Peter


Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles
Marek, Dr John


Gordon, Mildred
Marlow, Tony


Graham, Thomas
Marshall, David (Shettleston)


Grant, Sir A. (Cambs SW)
Marshall, Jim (Leicester, S)


Grant, Bernie (Tottenham)
Martin, David (Portsmouth S)


Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)
Martin, Michael J. (Springburn)


Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth, N)
Martlew, Eric


Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)
Mates, Michael


Grocott, Bruce
Mawhinney, Rt Hon Dr Brian


Gunnell, John
Meacher, Michael


Hague, William
Meale, Alan


Hain, Peter
Merchant, Piers


Hall, Mike
Michael, Alun


Hannam, Sir John
Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley)


Hanson, David
Michie, Mrs Ray (Argyll Bute)


Hardy, Peter
Milburn, Alan


Harris, David
Miller, Andrew


Harvey, Nick
Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)


Heppell, John
Mitchell, Sir David (Hants NW)


Higgins, Rt Hon Sir Terence L.
Molyneaux, Rt Hon James


Hill, James (Southampton Test)
Morris, Rt Hon A. (Wy'nshawe)


Hill, Keith (Streatham)
Mowlam, Marjorie


Hinchliffe, David
Mudie, George


Hoey, Kate
Mullin, Chris


Home Robertson, John
Murphy, Paul


Hood, Jimmy
Needham, Rt Hon Richard


Hordern, Rt Hon Sir Peter
Neubert, Sir Michael


Howard, Rt Hon Michael
O'Brien, Michael (N W'kshire)


Howarth, George (Knowsley N)
O'Brien, William (Normanton)


Howell, Rt Hon David (G'dford)
Olner, William


Howells, Dr. Kim (Pontypridd)
Onslow, Rt Hon Sir Cranley


Hoyle, Doug
Orme, Rt Hon Stanley


Hughes, Kevin (Doncaster N)
Parry, Robert


Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)
Patchett, Terry





Patnick, Irvine
Stephen, Michael


Pawsey, James
Stott, Roger


Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth
Tapsell, Sir Peter


Pickthall, Colin
Taylor, Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)


Pike, Peter L.
Taylor, Ian (Esher)


Pope, Greg
Taylor, Matthew (Truro)


Porter, David (Waveney)
Thomason, Roy


Powell, Ray (Ogmore)
Thompson, Jack (Wansbeck)


Prentice, Ms Bridget (Lew'm E)
Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)


Prentice, Gordon (Pendle)
Thornton, Sir Malcolm


Quin, Ms Joyce
Timms, Stephen


Radice, Giles
Tipping, Paddy


Raynsford, Nick
Tracey, Richard


Redmond, Martin
Trimble, David


Rifkind, Rt Hon. Malcolm
Trotter, Neville


Roberts, Rt Hon Sir Wyn
Turner, Dennis


Roche, Mrs. Barbara
Tyler, Paul


Rowlands, Ted
Vaz, Keith


Ruddock, Joan
Walden, George


Sedgemore, Brian
Walker, Rt Hon Sir Harold


Sheerman, Barry
Walley, Joan


Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert
Wardell, Gareth (Gower)


Shore, Rt Hon Peter
Wardle, Charles (Bexhill)


Short, Clare
Wareing, Robert N


Simpson, Alan
Wicks, Malcolm


Skinner, Dennis
Widdecombe, Ann


Smith, Andrew (Oxford E)
Wigley, Dafydd


Smith, Llew (Blaenau Gwent)
Wilkinson, John


Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)
Williams, Rt Hon Alan (Sw'n W)


Smyth, Rev Martin (Belfast S)
Williams, Alan W (Carmarthen)


Spearing, Nigel
Winnick, David


Spellar, John
Winterton, Mrs Ann (Congleton)


Spencer, Sir Derek
Winterton, Nicholas (Macc'f'ld)


Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)
Worthington, Tony


Spink, Dr Robert
Wright, Dr Tony


Squire, Rachel (Dunfermline W)
Young, Rt Hon Sir George


Squire, Robin (Hornchurch)



Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John
Tellers for the Noes:


Steel, Rt Hon Sir David
Mr. David Alton and


Steinberg, Gerry
Mr. Stuart Bell.

Question accordingly negatived.

Lords amendments Nos. 10 and 11 agreed to.

Amendment made to Lords amendment No. 12, to leave out '(ba) or (bb)' and insert 'or (ba)'—[Mr. Peter Lloyd.]

Lords amendment No. 12, as amended, agreed to.

Lords amendments Nos. 13 to 24 agreed to.

Schedule 4

RIGHTS OF SHOP WORKERS AS RESPECTS SUNDAY WORKING

Lords amendment: No. 25, in page 10, line 47, at end insert—

(" "catering business" means—

(a) the sale of meals, refreshments or intoxicating liquor for consumption on the premises on which they are sold, or
(b) the sale of meals or refreshments prepared to order for immediate consumption off the premises.")

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.—[Mr. Peter Lloyd.]

Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this it will be convenient to take Lords amendments Nos. 26 to 43.

Mr. Ray Powell: On the amendments dealing with employment protection, it was emphasised in Committee and on the Floor of the House that not only would staff who were expected to work on Sundays be given an enhanced payment—we talked about double time—but fuller protection than is currently in the Bill. As we are reaching the final stage of the Bill, some of us are alarmed that no protection is given to the hundreds of thousands of shop workers who will be expected to work on Sundays.
Will the Government consider introducing some sort of amendments or statutory instrument so that employees compelled to work on Sundays will be given some protection? The least that those who have been demanding for years that shops be open on Sundays should do is give one of the most poorly paid group of workers in the country—shop workers—a decent wage when they give up their Sundays to provide a service to the shop and the country. The least that we can do is ask the House to consider that at the first opportunity, so that workers receive the enhanced payment promised to them when the Bill was in Committee and elsewhere.

Question put and agreed to.

Lords amendments Nos. 26 to 43 agreed to.

Ordered,
That a Committee be appointed to draw up a Reason to be assigned to the Lords for disagreeing to their amendment No. 9.—[Mr. Peter Lloyd.]

Ordered,
That Mr. James Arbuthnot, Dr. Liam Fox, Mr. Peter Lloyd, Mr. Alan Meale and Ms Joan Ruddock be members of the Committee.—[Mr. Peter Lloyd.]

Ordered,
That three be the quorum of the Committee.—[Mr. Peter Lloyd.]

Ordered,
That the Committee do withdraw immediately.—[Mr. Peter Lloyd.]

Reason for disagreeing to Lords amendment No. 9 reported, and agreed to; to be communicated to the Lords.

Orders of the Day — The International Covenant for Civil and Political Rights

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn—[Mr. Patnick.]

Mr. Graham Allen: In August this year, Britain will go to the United Nations to stand condemned in the dock of world opinion for its failure to protect and extend citizens' rights in this country.
What we are really debating here today is the United Kingdom's shunned responsibilities and the Conservatives' failure to meet their human rights obligations to British citizens. It is sad that fundamental political questions of serious concern such as rights and democracy are debated in the United Kingdom's Parliament only by the luck of an Adjournment debate, rather than being central to our concerns. I am afraid that it shows how detached Parliament as a whole, and the Conservative Government in particular, has become from people's basic concerns.
By sharp contrast, the next Labour Government will deliver a renewed and real commitment to defining and protecting the rights of the British people. We shall do so not only because we have signed international treaties but because of our core belief that people's rights should be protected and are intrinsic to a democratic country, and not only because the United Nations will be looking over our shoulder to monitor our human rights record, but because we truly value the human dignity that should be inherent in every citizen in the country.
That will be just one strand of the attack on the failures of our democracy which the next Labour Government will introduce in the new democratic settlement. A fundamental political divide even transcends political parties. It is the divide between those who believe in a pluralist system with many ways into our democracy and those who believe that only one track exists in our democracy and that whoever wins the general election and installs someone in 10 Downing street has the whole of political wisdom summed up in their character. That false premise becomes increasingly less sustainable as the present Government go on.
The positive aspect of this debate, however, is that that effort to build up sustainable human rights in the United Kingdom must be just one part of a wider change in our democracy to a plural democracy of independent, strong and legitimate local authorities, regional assemblies that count for something and have real powers, a second Chamber elected by the people and a House of Commons worthy of the name. I am pleased to see my hon. Friend the Member for Newport, West (Mr. Flynn) here tonight as he has done much in the latter regard. He recently tried to put some flesh on the bones of the idea floated by the Prime Minister about improving Prime Minister's Question Time. As one of the outstanding parliamentarians of my intake, I hope that he gets all the success that he deserves.
In considering how rights affect the effort to build what John Smith called a new democratic settlement for a new century, we must first look at incorporating into British law the European convention on human rights and then seek to build up a knowledge and awareness of individual rights and responsibilities among the British people so that never again will people feel powerless and defenceless whenever


a central Government use their overbearing powers to slice away at individual liberties. That has patently taken place over the past 16 years and was also evident in the centralising tendencies of previous Governments. We should all have a little humility in that regard because Governments of all political colours have abused the overbearing power of the Executive to centralise power. In a society with no written checks or balances, little stands in the way of the central machine once it gets under way. Introducing those checks and balances—those impediments to arbitrary Executive power—must be one of the foremost tasks of the incoming Labour Government.
As I have said previously in the Chamber, I do not believe that written rights are a panacea for all the ills in our political society—far from it—but I firmly believe that the writing down of rights for everyone to see provides a framework in which the ordinary individual, even the schoolchild, can operate. Those constraints on executive power which should be in place can then be better understood by the average individual and not be the subject of judicial archaeology to discover an individual's specific rights.
It is therefore important that we move rapidly towards written rights for individuals and citizens in this country, and there is no better starting point than the internationally agreed texts on human rights. The clearest and most widely respected text is the international covenant for civil and political rights. In effect, it is an international bill of rights, put together by the United Nations and agreed by the nations of the world. It is a measure against which our human rights record should be studied.
As a signatory to the international covenant for civil and political rights, the United Kingdom has wittingly and willingly agreed to uphold the citizens' rights set down in its 27 articles, to adopt new legislation where necessary, to effect those rights fully and to ensure that anyone whose rights are violated has an effective remedy. Every five years, the Government must submit an account of their rights record and report on their progress in introducing legislation to effect rights. That report must be submitted to the United Nations human rights committee, which then examines it. In its most recent response to the United Kingdom's report in 1991, the committee expressed concern about the Conservative record on a wide variety of rights issues. Many of those issues remain unaddressed today: the lack of judicial process in respect of emergency measures in Northern Ireland; inadequate legal aid provision; the treatment of asylum seekers and discrimination in the application of immigration laws; restrictions on freedom of information and excessive censorship.
That statement has been submitted not by Her Majesty's loyal Opposition, nor by one of the groups on the libertarian wing of civil rights, but by a sober and responsible organisation affiliated to the United Nations which treads very carefully before issuing statements in respect of the human rights record of any country and which therefore must be taken more seriously than any easy party political point scoring that might take place in this Chamber.
As a nation, by ratifying the international covenant for civil and political rights we have officially recognised that:

the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world".
The failure of the Conservative Government to uphold in practice those equal and inalienable rights has contributed to the steady erosion of freedom, justice and peace in this country in the past 15 years. I shall seek to highlight those failures in the submission that I intend to make to the United Nations human rights committee next month.
We have signed and agreed that all peoples have the right of self-determination and that
by virtue of that right they may freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development".
Have the peoples of the United Kingdom been given that choice? Do the Government respect that fundamental right? I suggest that we consult the Scottish people for an answer to that question. My hon. Friend the Member for Newport, West may have a similar view to express for Wales, but the Scottish people have consistently voted and expressed their desire through opinion polls for some type of devolution. That has been made transparent at the ballot box, in the opinion polls, in surveys and in conversation. It is in the atmosphere that those people want further self-determination and no one can deny that. In 1979, a majority of Scots voted directly for the creation of a Scottish Assembly, yet the Conservative Government have refused to respect their desire for a new political status. Similar considerations apply in Wales, where the rights of the Welsh people have been neglected.
The Labour party is committed to upholding the right of self-determination of peoples by creating a Scottish Parliament and a Welsh Assembly. The realisation of that fundamental right found in the UN's covenant is long overdue in its application to our country.
I am sure that we would all say that we believed in the principles of justice and fairness. The international covenant for civil and political rights entrenches those principles. It states that everyone should be guaranteed the right to a fair trial and the presumption of innocence. It states those things baldly and clearly for all to see. There is no need to go back to the 17th century to read the obscure Habeas Corpus Act 1679 or even further back, to the 13th century, to read Magna Carta. It is there in plain language for every individual citizen to read in the covenant.
The covenent says that all persons must be afforded effective protection of the law, without discrimination. It states that a trial must take place without undue delay. It obliges Governments to provide legal assistance to anyone charged with a criminal offence who does not have the means to pay for it. It also obliges Governments to ensure that anyone charged with a criminal offence is informed promptly, in a language that he understands, of the nature and cause of the charge, and that that person is given adequate time and facilities for the preparation of his defence, including the free assistance of an interpreter if necessary, and is not compelled to testify against himself or to confess guilt. It also obliges Governments to ensure that everyone who is convicted of a crime has the right to review by a higher tribunal.
Many people would say that such rights prevail in the United Kingdom under common law, but that is insufficient. That is not in itself adequate to protect the individual's rights, to make us aware of our individual rights and to enable us to understand them. Without that


understanding, those rights become meaningless to the individual unless he is accompanied by a learned lawyer or some other assistant to his rights.
I do not believe that we should require assistance to meet our rights. Those rights should be plain for all to see and for all to understand. Again I use as my benchmark the youngster at school who should grow up knowing in plain language where he or she stands on some of the fundamentals. That is the beauty of the incorporation into British law of the European convention on human rights, which states clearly the basic rights to freedom of speech, freedom of worship and privacy.
Once one grows up with the knowledge of those things, they stay with one for ever and one is prepared to defend them for ever. They are not something gifted to one by an obscure legal judgment. They belong to one and they cannot be taken away from one. Once one knows one's rights, it is far easier to understand one's responsibilities and social obligations. It is far easier for a teacher at school to explain to a child, "Yes, you know that you have the freedom of speech, but rights overlap." There are difficulties with some rights. A person's right to freedom of speech does not mean the liberty to shout "Fire" in a crowded cinema, as the famous American case showed. With such debate and exchange, our young people will genuinely become citizens rather than subjects in our society—something that I hope all hon. Members would welcome.
The European convention on human rights is not that frightening, even for Conservative Members. It has existed in its current form since 1951 and everyone has been able to take it into account in moulding the development of law in the United Kingdom. I may sometimes be critical of the judiciary, but in many respects it is ahead of the politicians, and the subject under discussion is one of those respects. Many of the senior judiciary realise that the precedents set in European law, particularly rights law, are being drawn into British common law, even without the European convention on human rights being formally incorporated into British law. It is happening by stealth. Why can we not incorporate the European convention clearly, openly and honestly and begin the wider process of education?
We take for granted many rights that one would have to struggle hard to find in written form. I have already mentioned some of them. While we search for those rights which may prevail in the United Kingdom there are undoubtedly many areas of concern in the law in respect of human rights. The judiciary is still largely unrepresentative of the population. I make no case for a proportion of judges to be women or to be from an ethnic minority, to be black or to be white, but it is wrong that a mere handful of the senior judiciary are currently women and it is wrong that only two or three are from what may be categorised as ethnic minorities or are black.
I commend the work of the Lord Chancellor, but the judiciary must become more representative if its members are to reflect and find acceptance within our society as arbiters of law and rights. I wish the Lord Chancellor well in his efforts towards that end, but I believe that further effort is required. Proposals will be forthcoming from the next Labour Government to ensure that a more balanced judiciary is in place by the end of the first term of the Labour Government.
The miscarriages of justice have been plain for all to see in the trials and media coverage. Criminal trials all too often suffer undue delay. Justice delayed is justice denied,

which is not acceptable in modern society. Black and ethnic minorities, people with mental health problems, those already incarcerated and women suffer discrimination within our judicial system. Without a requirement in court to refer to legislated, written rights and with a barely discernible commitment to upholding the rights in the covenant, people up and down the country are subject to wrongful searches, arrests, detentions, convictions and imprisonment. That is not the way to ensure that citizens in this country support the judicial process and the hard-working police we are so lucky to have in this country. It is the way to undermine those institutions rather than strengthen them. I believe that written rights would help to strengthen those very forces of law and order now so ably represented by my hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair).
The legal aid system in this country is shameful. The Government have directly violated the right to free legal assistance for those who need it. The United Nations human rights committee stated in 1991—the last time that the Government had to report to the United Nations—that legal aid provisions in the United Kingdom were "excessively restricted". Those are not my words, but the words of the United Nations. The Conservatives have not only ignored that criticism, but have now placed the right to justice of the vulnerable and the poor in even greater jeopardy by legislating in April last year to reduce legal aid eligibility still further. Even more people are now being denied access to the courts where their cases can be dealt with openly and honestly.
The right to remain innocent until proved guilty is another basic human right and a fundamental tenet of our justice system. Not only has the proposed erosion of that right in the Criminal Justice and Public Order Bill been criticised by lawyers, pressure groups and politicians of all parties, but it is clearly in breach of our obligation under international law to guarantee a fair trial as defined in the international covenant for civil and political rights.
The European Commission of Human Rights has already ruled that the removal of the right to silence in Northern Ireland under the Police and Criminal Evidence (Northern Ireland) Order 1989 should be considered by the European Court. It is not good enough for our country to be periodically dragged into the courts, whether it is at the European level or whether it has to come before the United Nations every five years or so as the naughty boy of the international democratic community, unable to live up to international obligations that it helped to draft. The Government's school report states, "Must do better".
We in the Labour party recognise that there is a balance to be struck between convicting the guilty and ensuring that the innocent are not convicted. My hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield has made many proposals aimed at speeding up the conviction of the guilty, early intervention in the case of young offenders and other steps to reduce crime and protect the victims of crime. The rights of innocent people must be protected. We must ensure that suspects are not exposed to misleading questions which may result in false confessions and grave injustice. I shall not delay the House by rattling off the list of cases in which individuals have wrongly convicted themselves out of their own mouths as a result of such questioning. Those sad cases are known to all of us in this place.
The Criminal Justice and Public Order Bill does not confine its proposed rights violations to an erosion of the right to silence. It threatens the lifestyles of minority


cultures and will jeopardise the right to free movement and peaceful assembly. What sort of democracy can we claim to be when we are denied the right of assembly and peaceful protest? Those rights are enshrined in the covenant, so the Government are obliged to adhere to them. The covenant is not a voluntary process, but something written in international law to which the Government have voluntarily subscribed. It is not a menu from which they can take what they like and leave the rest. The Government are once again absolving themselves of their responsibility to adhere to the convention, much to the detriment of the rights and lives of United Kingdom citizens.
Under the international covenant for civil and political rights, we are also entitled to liberty and security. We must be protected from arbitrary arrest or detention and be accorded the due process of law. The right of freedom of association, which includes the right to form and join trade unions, is also enshrined in the covenant. The denial of trade union membership to employees at GCHQ is a disgrace and a grave violation of those rights. That, too, will be put right urgently and quickly by an incoming Labour Government after the next general election.
As immigration spokesperson for the Labour party, I am constantly confronted by violations of the rights of immigrants and asylum seekers. For example, the right of aliens to have an expulsion decision review is specifically and clearly stated in the international covenant for civil and political rights, but the Government breached their obligation to that right by passing the Asylum and Immigration Appeals Act 1993.
The Act removed the right of appeal against refusal of both entry clearance and leave to enter from visitors and students intending to study for less than six months and from prospective students and their dependants. It amounted to a removal of redress from about 25 per cent. of applicants. Many thousands of people who had appealed previously, had their appeals upheld and, therefore, could visit friends and family in this country found themselves without the right of appeal and denied the ability to test the decisions of the Home Office and the Government. It has compounded the existing problems of discrimination and disadvantages suffered by individuals from non-white countries that the Conservatives have failed to address.
Asylum seekers are not only detained en masse without trial, but are kept in difficult conditions, often for many months. It is in breach of the Government's obligations not to deprive anyone of his liberty
except on such grounds and in accordance with such procedures as established by law
and to treat all persons that are deprived of their liberty
with humanity and respect for the inherent dignity of the human person".
Can the conditions at Campsfield detention centre, where detainees are driven to go on hunger strike, be considered humane or dignified? How can the death of Omasese Lumumba, who died in Pentonville prison, where he was forcibly detained awaiting an asylum decision, be justified?
Prisoners are also denied the humanity and respect that is their right. Many prisons in the United Kingdom are overcrowded, with low standards of health care and sanitation, and problems such as drug taking are on the increase.
The international covenant for civil and political rights states that the essential aim of the penitentiary system should be the reformation and the social rehabilitation of prisoners. The United Nations human rights committee stressed the importance of that in its last report on the United Kingdom, yet prisoners in this country are offered little or no attempt at rehabilitation. Training and education facilities are limited, access to counselling and psychotherapy is denied to most prisoners and the use of solitary confinement continues.
Why does the Conservative political agenda appear to favour the imprisonment of as many people as possible? Their philosophy of prison works, as outlined by the Home Secretary's speech to the rabid Conservative conference last year, which proclaimed just that. It also proclaimed objectives such as locking up 12 to 14-year-olds and making community sentences "a proper punishment" with no regard to rehabilitation. That will serve to violate and not protect the rights which are bound in the UN convention.
I feel strongly that the best answer to the crime problem in Britain, particularly where it affects young people, is to give those young people a job; to give them some hope and some future. Then they will find less time to do the damage they so often do when denied that hope and that future by being denied a job.
There is not even an effective means of redress for prisoners whose rights have been violated, although the international covenant for civil and political rights clearly states that there must be such a remedy. We should have a prison complaints system that is independent and representative and full legal rights to representation and appeal.
Along with other citizens, prisoners must have their rights safeguarded in a civilised society and we shall follow closely the appointment and activities of the prison ombudsman to see whether he lives up to the benchmarks set by the United Nations.
It is fundamental to the international covenant for civil and political rights that the rights it serves to protect are accorded to all citizens equally and without distinction, yet the Conservative Government have continued to preside over institutions and to implement procedures which are clearly in breach of the convention's non-discrimination articles.
The Government have continued to ignore the unequal position of women in many spheres of economic and social life in the United Kingdom and have even refused to implement many of the recommendations put forward by their own independent watchdog, the Equal Opportunities Commission, when it has suggested anything approaching a radical overhaul of sex equality legislation.
The rights of ethnic minorities are also negotiated and the Commission for Racial Equality cites continuing evidence of widespread discrimination on racial grounds.
It was with some regret that I read the Home Secretary's comments in the recent European election raising fears of mass immigration from eastern Europe, raising the spectre to frighten people here by saying that millions of people would come into the United Kingdom from central and eastern Europe, and, indeed, telling some untruths in respect of the policies of my own party.
It really sits ill with such a person to pose as the friend of the ethnic minority communities, seeking to ensure racial harmony while stoking the very fires of prejudice and discrimination that so afflict our country. That was as


deeply disappointing as his failure to condemn the Mail on Sunday for its distortion of the story relating to those Jamaicans who came to Britain at Christmas time and its statement that those people had vanished.
The Home Secretary knows as well as anyone else that by the same definition millions of British tourists vanish at any one time because people are not counted in and counted out of nations when they go on holiday. It was a ludicrous story for the Mail on Sunday to run and it was even more offensive that the Home Secretary could not find it in himself publicly to state his condemnation of the way in which that front page story was run in order to incite individuals to a wrong perception of the situation concerning immigrants or visitors from Jamaica.
It was really not good enough to come forward with a less than adequate statement on racial harassment and minor changes to the law on racial harassment when we all know that the race card will be played at election time, as it was played in the European elections and the last general election and as it will be played in the next general election.
Quite frankly, I hope that the Home Secretary, not least because of his own family background—I do not wish to linger on that, but I understand that he came from a family of immigrants and has made much of himself from that background and I welcome the fact that he has done that—should consider the fortunes of those setting out on the same path. To feed prejudice and the poison of discrimination does no credit to him or his office.
Under the international covenant for civil and political rights we are entitled to privacy and the Conservative Government have made a mockery of that right. Infringements of individual privacy by the state and large corporations are now rife, let alone the bugging and the use of long range lenses to pry into the lives of individuals by the media.
Surveillance and bugging have become more prevalent, and employees complain of intrusive monitoring of their personal lives in the work place. There is even talk of introducing identity cards—but to imagine that such cards will have a serious impact on crime is to delude oneself. I fear that the Prime Minister is snatching at another of the one-off ideas that he comes up with sometimes, such as boot camps. They will have no effect whatever on hardened criminals such as drug dealers, and others who can easily obtain access to false identity cards. That happens throughout Europe, and the introduction of identity cards will not influence such people by one iota.
Press regulation is inadequate, and the press complaints body is unrepresentative. The need for a formal privacy law can no longer be ignored. Even the Government's own consultation paper "Infringements of Privacy" admitted that the law does not protect people adequately from harassment. Opposition Members recognise the need to balance the right to privacy with rights to freedom of information and expression. We require not only the introduction of privacy laws but a freedom of information Act, "right to reply" legislation and a free press.
For too long we have drifted away from fundamental principles of open government and free information towards censorship, excessive secrecy and unaccountability in government. Those developments are not the product of any personal defects in Conservative Members; they are a logical extension of centralised power in this country, which is unchecked and unchallenged, with no one item able to stand in the way of the will or whim of members of

the Executive. That, rather than the inadequacies of this or that political personality, is the fundamental fault in our political system.
At present, we do not even have minimal legislation on freedom of information. The Conservatives have not only held but withheld information as they have seen fit. Even the citizens charter allows public authorities to keep basic consumer information secret from the public. Sometimes the Conservatives give us a glimpse of commitment to upholding their human rights obligations; in this instance, they have promised to release information on request under a new code of practice on access to Government information. It is a bit surprising that the effect of the code will be limited in practice: unlike a freedom of information Act, it is not actually enforceable. Rather than having access to documents, we shall be given only selective answers to questions. Even then, information on immigration, nationality and refugee policy will be exempt—and the Conservatives are planning to charge for the information.
The same circumstances apply to so many of our rights. Legislation for rights protection may be in place, but that is not enough to ensure that our rights are made effective in practice. The Government do not merely have an obligation to legislate; they have a responsibility to make good their rights protections. A pertinent example is the right to participate in the conduct of public affairs. That right is essential if we are to have a representative and accountable Government, and maintain a sense of citizenship that has faded steadily over the past 15 years.
Little wonder that there is a pervasive feeling of alienation from the institutions of politics; little wonder that there is a low turnout in our council and European elections—and, in my view, an unacceptably low turnout in our parliamentary elections. Little wonder that there is a deep, genuine and growing contempt, if not for this place, for some of the people in it and for antics that the public perceive as irrelevant and unimportant—antics that we get up to when there are matters of great import to be discussed.
We in this place have a necessary duty to correct that problem. I believe that we must ensure that our procedures are brought up to date—not in a dry technical sense, but as an important, indeed central, part of our democracy. In an electronic age, people at home should feel that they share our beliefs and respect our opinions, rather than seeing what we do as a form of the cult comedy that so often appears on our screens.

Mr. Tam Dalyell: Speeding up our procedures involves a difficulty : it often means that opportunities for Back Benchers are wiped out. For instance, the second Adjournment debate used to be an acceptable part of House of Commons procedure, but is now exceedingly difficult to secure. Tonight is an example of that. I am in no way criticising my hon. Friend, but I warn him that modernising our procedures often means fewer opportunities for Back Benchers who may want to put urgent points of view on awkward subjects.

Mr. Allen: I have great respect for my hon. Friend's views in that respect, and in particular for the doughty fight that he, as a legislator, has carried out against the Executive. I think that many newer and younger Members of Parliament pride themselves on emulating, in their own way, his efforts to perform that task.
I hope that my hon. Friend agrees that the Executive now has powers that would make Stalin salivate. The Prime Minister, in 10 Downing street, has the ability to appoint senior judiciary and every member of the Cabinet—the senior Executive; he has the ability to appoint Members to the second Chamber, should that ever be necessary. If 1,000 Members in the other place were to perish and the majority was not there for the Conservative party, the Prime Minister could appoint additional Members, unencumbered by a bill of rights or a written constitution.
I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) thinks long and hard about these matters. He may agree that one of the central problems of this place is the fact that the legislature is not an independent body but, to all intents and purposes, the creature of the Executive. It is almost possible to use an analogy that was used the other day, involving the film "Alien": within the legislation is the enormous parasitical body of the Executive, controlling its every movement. I am waiting to see it burst out from the Minister at some point in the near future.
I consider the control exercised by the Executive to be the enemy of democracy. The only answer is to develop a pluralist democracy of many institutions, each with its own legitimacy and power, that can confront and conflict with the Executive on the road to consensus. I think that the Executive has often allowed Back Benchers the few crumbs of power that they have in order to disguise the fundamental inadequacy of this place in holding the Executive to account.
The international covenant for civil and political rights guarantees everyone the right and opportunity to participate in the conduct of public affairs, to vote or be elected and to have equal access to public service. In 1994, we still have massive over-centralisation and restricted access to the opportunities that I have cited. Central Government refuse to devolve power to the nations and regions. Again, I make no passing party-political point; Governments of all descriptions have always tended towards centralisation because they have been unencumbered and unrestricted by written rights and constitutional developments, and local democracy has been classically undermined over the past 16 years.
I often wonder why many of my hard-working colleagues in local government stand for election. They do a vital and tremendous job, but they no longer have influence or control over budgets. Many members of the Conservative, Labour and other parties now choose not to enter local politics and serve their community because they feel that it would be useless to do so in the face of the Executive power that is being used against them. Many people take great pride in being able to make small local achievements, but their right and ability to do so is being denied by the Government's massive centralisation drive, which conflicts with one of the basic tenets of civil and political rights in the international covenant.

Mr. Dalyell: Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the first objectives of a Labour Government should be to restore dignity to local government?

Mr. Allen: I feel strongly that local government should be given some form of genuine independence from the centre. How that should be achieved—by using the

Parliament Act 1911, by defining its financial abilities and by making clear its power—will require wide discussion and probably some genuine consensus in the House.
We must listen to the voices outside and must give them power and let 1,000 flowers bloom, even though from our point of view some may be weeds. It is important to hear people and ensure those developments. In that way lies economic recovery. The great personal strength of the former Prime Minister, Baroness Thatcher—using the centralised machine to its nth degree—has proved one thing to all of us: that centralisation can no longer deliver economically. It was tried with its best driver but failed. The answer to our economic ills lies in a far wider effort, involving independent local communities, individuals with rights and the ability to define their own futures and with the regions and nations of the United Kingdom operating together.
I do not believe that our economic salvation lies with centralisation. It will be guaranteed, as it is in many of our leading competitor countries, only by those who seek to devolve energy and power and give people their head to innovate and be entrepreneurial. The way that the Government are going, running counter to the international covenant on civil and political rights, is the wrong way to go—more and more centralisation will mean that we are less and less effective.
One of the classic examples is the plethora of unelected quangos. Billions of pounds of public money is dispensed without account or clearly defined lines of scrutiny to elected representatives. Our public services, having been in the hands, first, of locally-elected representatives and then nationally-elected representatives, are now increasingly in unelected hands.
Membership of Parliament, for example, is not open to all, most starkly because the hereditary principle still operates in half of our legislature but also because the unsociable hours of Parliament and the lack of child care facilities prevent those with family responsibilities from participating in government. Black and ethnic minorities remain under-represented. An incoming Government must, above all, make it clear that as part of a new democratic settlement—a new pluralist settlement—we shall redeem our historic pledge to have an elected second Chamber and abolish the House of Lords in its current form. That, too, ties in with the international covenant on civil and political rights by ensuring that people are drawn into public affairs.
It is nonsense that the vast majority of those who sit in our second Chamber are hereditary peers. That is becoming less and less tenable in this day and age. As I read in the newspaper the other day, what a farce we would say it was if the second Chamber in Germany, instead of being made up of regional representatives, were made up of relatives of the former Kaiser or Bismarck or that the second Chamber in Russia were made up of relatives and descendants of Lenin, Stalin or even the Tsars.
I know that my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Monklands, East, before his sad death, felt vehemently that the hereditary peerage should be dispensed with quickly and that we should have proper elections to the second Chamber. Nothing less would be acceptable under a new Labour Government.
Hon. Members, too, have no reason to be complacent for the reasons that I outlined earlier, with the assistance of my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow. This place needs to rediscover some teeth in terms of the way in which


it scrutinises legislation. Pre-legislative scrutiny is very important. The Special Standing Committees that have been in abeyance for many years need to be resurrected in some form. We must strengthen departmental Select Committees so they can report to the Floor. Since 1979, there have been 500 departmental Select Committee reports, many of them first rate, but only four have been voted on on the Floor of the House. What other organisation that any Member is connected with establishes a committee to do a job and refuses to receive its report? What nonsense.
We must make some fundamental changes before we shall be seen to be fit to challenge the Executive. That Executive may be a Labour Executive. That is one of the reasons why resisting the temptation to shelve reform needs the inoculation of clear, open public commitments well ahead of a general election.
The formal political process must be opened up to ensure broader representation of people, nationally and locally. We need a diversity of institutions—that is the definition of pluralism and is contrary to our unitary system—that are elected, accountable and, above all, independent of central Government, so that none of them is the creature of central Government and the Executive.
We also require a plurality of electoral systems. I do not make a case for any particular electoral system, nor do I make a case for change in the first Chamber, but one of the things that I learned from two years hard labour on Lord Plant's commission into electoral systems is that there is no holy grail, no perfect electoral system. It is a matter of political judgment, and the judgment of my party, endorsed at its annual conference last year, is that there should be a regional list system of proportional representation for the European Parliament. It seems perfectly suited to that. That means that last week's election was the last election under first past the post and we will move on to a different system under a new Government. That should be welcomed by the Conservative party, since such a system would have meant that the disaster that they suffered would have been slightly mitigated.
However, as a democrat I accept that there are swings and roundabouts, and that a mid-term Labour Government might find themselves the beneficiaries, by losing fewer seats than otherwise might have been the case.
Secondly, the Labour party conference proposed that the second Chamber should be elected by a similar proportional representation system, using a regional list. Finally, the conference said that there should be a referendum, and that the people should decide on the electoral system to be used for this place, although there was a preference for single-Member constituencies.
Those three pledges were not merely made by our national executive committee and our party conference, but were agreed by our former leader. Of all the people in my party, John Smith had the greatest gut instinct for democracy—perhaps because of his Scottish background, perhaps because of his devolution experience. He may have been a hard man to convince, but when he was convinced on a matter of democracy, he stuck with it in the strongest possible fashion—as I know well with regard to his deep personal commitment to a bill of rights, to incorporate the European convention on human rights. It is nothing less than a personal task to ensure that those commitments are carried through in his absence, as he would have wanted.
We must encourage greater participation in our democracy, if it is to be worthy of the name. We can do that by more than one-off participation once every four or five years at a general election; we should have lots of strings to our bow. We should have meaningful local elections and develop regional assemblies from the bottom up. They should not be imposed from the centre and thus be immediately repealable following a change of Government; they should be regions that people want, care for and build themselves. Devising those institutions, and ensuring that people feel that they own them, will be an important task.
We should also have a judiciary that is more representative of and less distant from those whom it seeks to serve. We should have a European Parliament that defines its powers. Let us take the word subsidiarity at its face value, decide what should be done at the European level and define clearly what the powers of the nation state should be. In those contexts, backed up by the fact that individuals would know their rights, individuals would genuinely and meaningfully be able to participate at many levels in our democracy. That is a great cause, well worth working for in the next Labour Government.
But that is for the next Labour Government, and here we are now with a Government who seem to have no desire whatever for any restraint to be placed upon their activities in the name of democracy, or of human rights or citizens' rights. An unrestrained executive power has allowed the Conservatives to pursue policies and introduce legislation that undermines human rights in many spheres. The result is a disillusioned populace, withdrawn from politics and lacking any real sense of citizenship and civic responsibilities. Participatory democracy has been stifled in this country.
One of the key areas that we must examine to ensure that the international covenant for civil and political rights is made meaningful is the use and abuse of prerogative powers—the ability of a Government of any political party to take the nation into a war without any redress, and without even informing the House. The House debates matters long after the event, and then only because a motion is contrived to allow Members to have their say. Obviously, I do not say that the Executive should be prevented from taking the necessary action at a time of national emergency, but at the earliest reasonable opportunity that action should be ratified by the legislature—the people who represent the electorate.

Mr. Dalyell: Does my hon. Friend recall that the House of Commons was in no way consulted about the decision to allow bombers to go from Upper Heyford and other British bases to attack Libya, and that there was no formal permission for the Gulf war? Those and many other factors mean that it ill becomes us to criticise the Americans too much about the Gulf of Tonkin.

Mr. Allen: The same could be said of Kuwait as of Libya—and also of the Falklands conflict, in which actions were taken and only later, on a procedural technicality, was the elected House of Commons involved.
Prerogative powers also extend to such activities as the appointment of the judiciary. How interesting it was to see the hearings concerning Anita Hill and Clarence Thomas in the United States Congress, at the same time as in this country two judges of the Court of Appeal were appointed without any reference whatever to the legislature. I do not


say that we should put our judiciary through the mill as Clarence Thomas was put through the mill, but there is a happy medium. Those individuals should at least have their appointments noted by the House.
To have a Legal Affairs Select Committee—the only part in the St. John-Stevas jigsaw still missing from 1979—would be progress. The possibility of having a Secretary of State for Justice, answerable at the Dispatch Box, rather than having a Lord Chancellor in the other place, would be progress, too.
Certainly we should understand how the individuals concerned come to be appointed. I shall digress briefly with one anecdote. The father of a friend of mine was to be appointed to a senior post in the judiciary, and when he went along for his interview the whole process, which lasted 40 minutes, consisted of a discussion of how the cricket team was doing at his old public school. He then left the interview and was told by letter the following day that he had got the job.
There may be some exaggeration in my friend's story—I do not know—but it is difficult to discover the criteria used in individual appointments. It would be healthy for our democracy if, even if only nominally, such senior people were to come before the House or one of its committees to take up their posts and be given their duties legitimately by the legislature. I go no further than that. The present process undermines the credibility of the judiciary, and mystery does not add to that credibility in this modern age—the information age.

Mr. Dalyell: On the question of a Secretary of State for Justice, when I was first elected here some 32 years ago, the whole place was hoatching with Queen's counsel on both sides. Both parties will soon be hard put to it to find QCs to occupy the positions of Attorney-General and Solicitor-General. It is becoming a problem for the Conservative party and it is certainly a problem for the Opposition. In those circumstances, the idea of having an Attorney-General becomes that much more difficult. We Scots have seen this because we cannot have direct questioning of the Lord-Advocate, who is our equivalent of the Attorney-General. With a case such as Lockerbie, there can be extremely serious consequences.

Mr. Allen: That is a genuine difficulty in respect of the Attorney-General and the Solicitor-General. Where I would draw the line would be that if the Lord Chancellor was accountable to this place, and if we genuinely had a Secretary of State for Justice, there would be no reason for that individual to have as a requirement a legal qualification, any more than we would expect the Secretary of State for Health to be a legally qualified doctor. It might be better if a Secretary of State for Justice, encountering the fundamental political problems and administrative problems that beset our legal system and our judiciary, was a person without legal qualifications.
In terms of prerogative powers, there must be in principle one general rule—that in this day and age, any power exercised by the Executive should have legislative authority. Again, I am not saying that that would alter the way in which the power was used. However, let it be transparent and let it be on the face of a Bill that the Government—the Executive—have the power to take the

country into war, on the condition that at the earliest possible moment the House should be informed and allowed to debate the matter.
Let it be on the face of a Bill that the judiciary should be appointed in the following way. Let it be on the face of a Bill that instead of treaties being covered by some obscure rule from the 1920s, they shall be ratified by this place if they involve international obligations. Again, perhaps, there is no need for a change in the way in which power is exercised, but essentially there is a need for a change in the way in which power is held to account. That needs to be made very clear in this place.

Mr. Dalyell: I intrude on my hon. Friend's generosity, once again, to support him. It is not simply a matter of not formally debating military action before it happens. I have experience, as do some of my colleagues, of pleading with Speakers when ominous situations were developing to allow private notice questions so that something could be done before the event about what seemed to be important issues. But we are told that the situation is hypothetical and that we are not entitled to a private notice question. In those circumstances, it is a case of not being able to take action until the milk is spilt. That is deeply unsatisfactory, democratically and constitutionally.

Mr. Allen: As usual, my hon. Friend finds the most knotty and difficult points of principle in my general case. I would be extremely cautious before saying that the Executive power itself could not be used as and where it was seen to be appropriate. However, I underline the principle that the legislature should then be able to scrutinise and hold to account the Executive in their actions. My hon. Friend may agree that that would be the only sensible way in which to proceed.
We do not seek to hamstring the Executive. On the contrary, as many years' membership of the Public Accounts Committee has taught me, an effective legislature is a boon and a bonus to an Executive, unless it becomes deadlocked or gridlocked by the political problems that have beset the Executive in the United States. If it does not, it is of great assistance, not only in terms of value for money, in which the Public Accounts Committee revels, but in terms of good government. Some of the most appalling mistakes made by Government would have been checked if we had had an effective legislature.
The poll tax is but one example. I led for my party, along with my hon. Friend the Member for Eccles (Miss Lestor), who was with us earlier, on the Child Support Bill. My word, the Government must now wish that they had listened at that point, a year before the Bill became an Act. Would not they now give their eye teeth for a pre-legislative stage? They could then have listened to the fathers, the mothers and the children who could have told them about some of the nonsense that would emerge through the Child Support Act 1991. But we failed. The House failed in its duty of holding the Executive to account. Since we failed, literally thousands of people have suffered, many of them children.
That is but one example. Hon. Members who have served on other Bills can tell the House from their own experience of how in education, or in immigration or other areas, the failure to provide proper legislative scrutiny has left a legacy, which is inherited by the schools, by the people seeking a visitor's visa, and by other individuals


affected by our legislation. We are not yet competent and professional enough in the way in which we scrutinise the Executive and their legislation. Clearly, that has to be put right, or we may, even then, be in breach of our commitments under the international convention on civil and political rights.
The Opposition do not want prerogative powers and Executive powers done away with, but they should be held to account by the appropriate body, in a political philosophy which goes back 200 years through a separation of powers and all the other key democratic pillars to which many of us pay lip service. We want those powers held to account by the legislature and checked, at one remove, by an independent judiciary. That is the basis of any democracy. We do not have that basis in this country and we do not have it in this place. We want to see the Government of the United Kingdom revitalised, with renewed trust in their practice and institutions and revived participation on the part of all their citizens. We want to see citizens as shareholders in our democracy. The responsibility lies with Government and, if this Government will not take it, that responsibility, abdicated by the Conservatives, will be picked up and welcomed by an incoming Labour Government.
The international covenant on civil and political rights sounds technical, it sounds dry, it does not look very sexy on the Order Paper, but all of us in the House would do well to put on our walls as part of our job description what it says in the following respect:
the ideal of free human beings, enjoying freedom from fear and want can only be achieved if conditions are created whereby everyone may enjoy his or her economic, social and cultural rights, as well as his civil and political rights".
That is not a bad job description for a Member of Parliament and it is one which we should take very seriously. Central to that will be the need to improve the UK system of checks and balances, so that the Executive may be held to account, as I have outlined, and a new, pluralist constitutional settlement based on those principles of subsidiarity and openness and entrenched rights in law.
I have said that we are committed to incorporating into British law the European convention on human rights. We are also committed to establishing an all-party commission, which will devise a British bill of rights and bring that bill back to this place in a matter of years, perhaps two years, after the first incorporation has taken place. That will give individuals the right to challenge arbitrary decisions and excesses of powers that affect them and to guarantee a quality of treatment without discrimination. Those of us who are interested in that area—all of us should be—follow the proposals emanating from Northern Ireland at the moment about the possible consensus that could arise around a bill of rights in that part of the United Kingdom. There is much of importance for the other people of the United Kingdom in that, as well as for the people in the Northern Irish part of the United Kingdom and I wish those who are involved the very best in producing something that may have something to teach the rest of us about making sure that human rights are respected throughout the kingdom.
Statute law will be used, and must be used, to correct the specific rights problems which are not always captured by the generality of rights legislation. Our new constitution will comprise that rights legislation, the election of a second Chamber, an examination of our electoral systems and referenda on the system to be used by the first

Chamber, English regional assemblies, a Scottish Parliament, a Welsh Assembly, a reformed judiciary to which I have alluded, and independent local government.
Very soon, our country will undergo the humiliation of having the Conservatives defend their rights record before the United Nations. Shortly thereafter, the UN human rights committee will issue its response, which, as the last one did, will inevitably highlight the deficiencies of the human rights record of the Conservative Government. Let this be the last time that our record is a source of shame for our country. Let a new Government, a Labour Government, build a nation aware of its rights and secure in their defence.

Mr. Paul Flynn: On 4 November 1839, in my constituency, 20 men were killed, one of whom was George Shell, a cabinet maker from Pontypool. The night before he died, he sent a message to his parents saying, "If I die tomorrow, I will die in a noble cause." That noble cause was the same noble cause about which my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen) has spoken tonight. It was the cause of democracy and human rights.
George Shell was one of the Chartists to be shot down in front of the Westgate hotel in Newport. The Chartists campaigned against all the crude injustices and unfairness of the embryonic and very wretched democracy that existed at that time. Over the years, our democracy has improved. All but one of those Chartists' rights have been achieved. We have got rid of uneven sized constituencies. The property right has been abolished and the franchise is now universal.
However, one of the Chartists' claims has never been achieved. As each year passes, that other point of the charter which they carried on their banners becomes more appropriate. That point was annual parliaments. I am not suggesting that we should head in that direction, but the position that we are in now is highlighted by the fact that, all that time ago, the Chartists foresaw the perversion of democracy that we suffer from now. Once every four or five years, one party persuades the country to vote for it.
That persuasion is often not achieved by legitimate means. It is carried out by the use of money, half truths and bribery by a party. I can give the House an example of that as I had a ten-minute Bill on the subject. We no longer control the national spending by parties on elections. The proportion is £9 by the Conservative party, £4 by Labour and £1 by the Liberal Democrats. There is no check on that whatsoever.
One of the advantages enjoyed by the governing party in the elections was that it was given poster sites, which could not be obtained by the Labour party or the Liberal Democrats, by the Imperial Tobacco Company. That company told me in a letter that it did that because it knew that the Government had promised not to ban tobacco advertising. That was a thoroughly illegitimate way of obtaining advantage. We also know that the Government used the powers of advertising to put forward to the electorate an untruth about tax policy. However, on one day every five years over the past 15 years, the Government have persuaded the country to support them. On almost every one of the other days, a majority in the country opposed the Government. That is not the proper way to run a democracy.
I shall not repeat the main points that were raised so eloquently by my hon. Friend. However, we have a real difficulty in Wales because Wales has the largest democratic deficit of any country, certainly in the European Union. The democracies of eastern Europe emerged while our democracy in Wales was abused and battered more than ever before.
Just over a fortnight ago, I was part of a panel on democracy in the European election campaign. One candidate admitted that he did not believe in democracy; he did not think that it was a good thing. He thought that the world should be run by 7,000 yogic fliers: these people had a special knowledge and they would get together, unelected, and decide everything. We have people in Wales who are not, I think, qualified as yogic fliers, but they are qualified as members of one party which cannot win elections in Wales. Fellow travellers of that party sit on quangos in Wales.
Over the past 15 years, we have seen an enormous growth in the power of quangos and the amount of money that they use. They are staffed by people who cannot be elected—failed Conservative candidates in local and other elections that take place in Wales. At the same time as we have seen the process of unelected bodies growing in power, we have seen—as my hon. Friend pointed out—the denial of power, influence and resources for elected local councillors, so they have little power left now. Our democracy has been degraded by that process.
The civil service is a great worry. We do not often talk about the value of our civil service. However, 150 years ago, we reformed the civil service because, like most civil services in the world, it was corrupt and politicised. Despite 15 years of Thatcherism, and despite 15 years of promotion by people who were seen by the Government to be "one of us" and to have a certain political view, we still have a civil service that is the least corrupt and the least politicised of any civil service in the world.
What are we doing about it? We are offering the civil service to be market tested and, ultimately, privatised and contractualised, so that it will be run by people who are not devoted to public service. From the top to the bottom, civil servants are special. They have a special regard for their role, and they know that they are not out to make a profit. There is an element—often it is a powerful element—of service in that job. All political parties have had the benefit of a civil service that is not corrupt or partial. That is one of the great strengths of our democracy.
Because of the Government's fanaticism for believing that everything private is good and everything public is bad, we are about to sacrifice that. We are about to see the civil service shrink into a small core—that is the expressed wish of many Ministers—with all the main civil servants being run by commercial firms and working towards commercial ends. What we will end up with is what Governments in other countries are ill served by—civil servants who are partial, politicised and corrupt.
Never at any time in the past 150 years have we had so many cases of corruption in quangos and other public bodies, especially, sadly, in Wales. Almost every week, there has been a scandal in a public body in Wales over the past 12 months.
My hon. Friend mentioned the need to reorganise our democratic process. Our faith in the democratic process

has collapsed—and so it should, because when most people go to vote they realise that their vote does not make any difference. The only votes that matter are those in the marginal seats. People who vote Conservative in Ebbw Vale or Labour down on the south coast realise that their vote does not make any difference whatever. It is only the small number of people in marginal seats who count.
We have seen the travesty of democracy that has occurred so many times. The worst example was the 1983 election where a large number of people voted for the third party which had few representatives in the House. Unless we correct that situation and ensure that the views of voters are reflected in their representatives here, which we can do simply through the system that the Labour party is proposing, there will be a lack of respect for democracy.
Today, I spent some time looking at a Bill that went through the House in 1985. The Prime Minister was the Government spokesman, and the acting leader of the Labour party was the Opposition spokesman. It was an atrocious piece of legislation. If one is looking for a bad Bill, that was it. It introduced personal pensions and it was interesting to read some of the prophetic remarks of one of our former colleagues, Mr. Frank Haynes, then the Member for Ashfield. He told us clearly what would happen as a result of the Bill.
Tonight we heard about the legislation that set up the Child Support Agency. We are not an efficient democracy if we allow bad laws to pass, unchecked and without proper scrutiny. My hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, North mentioned another matter that has occurred to us during the past few days and it is interesting to note that the two are connected.
The Prime Minister declared his views on civilising our procedures and stopping us from looking like an entertainment, for which he would receive warm support from all corners of the House, as happened in the debate yesterday. We are legislators. Legislation is not a spectator sport, or something to be enjoyed. It is not something for people outside to view for their entertainment, but we are seen in that way and it demeans our role and the people's view of us.
How sad it was that, when someone attempted to take up the challenge that the Prime Minister made by asking us to send him our questions so that he could think about them and give a considered response, his answer to a serious question that involved the pensions of 6 million very anxious people and did not include combative words or try to strike any political advantage was not reasonable or civilised and did not produce light rather than heat. An editorial in The Times described his answer as a typical civil service briefing, followed by a cheap political jibe.
Can we really take the Government seriously when they talk about reform of the House of Commons unless they show by their deeds as well as their words that they are serious about it?
My hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, North dealt ably with the legal system. At a more humble level, how are magistrates selected and whom do they represent? The lord lieutenant of a county chairs the committee that selects its magistrates. Being a lord lieutenant is hardly a democratic job. I applied for it once. I wrote to the Queen and said that I had noticed that all the lords lieutenant in my county had been prominent freemasons with brilliant military careers who lived in large houses surrounded by their own grounds. They were all white, male Gentiles, rich enough to do a job without any salary. I asked the Queen


whether she thought that I, as a shift worker in the steel works who thought that he could do a reasonable job, could be considered for it. I received a brief and polite reply, but my application was unsuccessful.
The Guardian recently picked about 12 lords lieutenant at random and found, amazingly, that every one had been to Eton—hardly a cross-section of society, but they chair the committees that select magistrates. It is not surprising that, even in an area such as mine where we elect Labour Members of Parliament with very large majorities, most magistrates declare themselves to be supporters of the Conservative party. It is highly dangerous when we can draw maps of our towns and find that the magistrates come from one area and the defendants from another. That cannot be a good thing if we want a magistracy who can understand the people who come before them.
My final point relates to language in this House. My hon. Friend said that we should have the right to use the language of our choice. This is the only Parliament that Wales has. Wales is England's first and, sadly, last colony, but if I were to speak in the original and ancient language of Wales I should be declared out of order. It has the same status here as riotous behaviour.
Yet there are Parliaments in the world which can deal with eight or nine languages perfectly happily. You are looking nervous, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but I shall not speak in Welsh. On one occasion when Madam Speaker was in the Chair, I spoke in the words of Chaucer, which were totally unintelligible to almost everyone in the Chamber. I would be quite in order to speak in those words, and I shall for a moment:
Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licour
Of which vertu engendered is the flour.
I shall stop there. But those lovely words of Chaucer are English—not Anglo-Saxon or Norman French. They are perfectly in order in this House, but they are gibberish to most people. Yet I cannot speak in Welsh, a language understandable by 20 hon. Members, in the House because that language is denied in the House.
We look forward to the day when all of the lovely languages of these islands—Irish, Gaelic and Welsh—can be spoken here. That is one of our fundamental human rights.

Mr. Tam Dalyell: I must say to my hon. Friend the Member for Newport, West (Mr. Flynn) that West Lothian and the Linlithgow constituency cannot complain about our lord lieutenant. He is the 23rd Earl of Morton, but he did leave school at 15 and was a chef, truck driver and building worker. He is a jolly good lord lieutenant.
In his quite outstanding speech—one which was more than ephemeral and will be much-thumbed by many people in the Labour party—my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen) touched on the problem of Law Officers, and a Secretary of State for Justice.
Often in life, one does not know that one is missing something until suddenly one does not have it. I am referring to the fact that the Scots do not have a Law Officer in the House of Commons. If anybody had told me 20 years ago that this was a serious situation, I think that I would have been relaxed about it. But one does not realise what is not there until one does not have it.
Perhaps I am obsessed with Lockerbie, but it was the biggest crime against western civilisation since 1945. One of the key Departments—proudly separate from the Scottish Office, incidentally—the Crown Office, through either the Solicitor-General or Lord Advocate, cannot be questioned in the House of Commons. I do not make a party point, but it is a deeply unsatisfactory situation.
Another truth about British government, which I am sure my hon. Friend has tumbled to, is that when there is a problem which affects one Department, it is often very efficiently dealt with. If it is in the domain of the Home Office—in my opinion, a very efficient Department—my experience is that usually one gets answers and there is a coherent policy. Equally, if something is clearly in the domain of the Department of Transport, there is again a good reply; and that is also the case with the powerful Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. The trouble starts when a problem straddles two, three or four Departments.
I do not say that simply because it is an excuse for raising a subject which I would have wished to raise in a second Adjournment debate, but the gods were against me on this occasion for reasons which I shall not go into. It was an erosion of the rights of Parliament, and that is why I interrupted my hon. Friend to say that we should be careful about getting rid of anachronisms. The second Adjournment debate was an anachronism. It was highly inconvenient, but it was often an opportunity to air subjects of great urgency. Therefore, we should be careful about cutting down on what seem to be the sillinesses and slownesses of the parliamentary system.
The subject of Lockerbie straddles the Crown Office, the Foreign Office, and it must be a matter of considerable concern to the Home Office. It is of considerable concern to the debate, because if we are talking about international conventions on civil rights, two groups have civil rights in this matter. One group must surely be the relatives of the victims of Pan-Am 103. They have their rights to the truth. Another group with rights are the 5,000 or so of our fellow countrymen who are working in Libya and are affected by sanctions.
If Lockerbie were simply a matter of history some years ago and that nothing could be done about it, people like me would not be bothering the House of Commons at every available opportunity about it. It is an on-going issue because it is vitiating many of our relations with the Arab world. Only today, when I attended the Nuclear Forum, the most bitter complaints were made by senior executives of Babcock and Wilcox that orders that might have gone to Libya from Britain are going from South Korea. The effects of Lockerbie represent an on-going cost to one of the Arab countries with which we were most friendly.
Now is not the time to go into the details of the Libyan connection. I do not want to chance my arm and I hope that I am not a parliamentary cheat in the sense of commenting on one subject under the guise of another. I have one question only to put to the Government as a whole, not least to the Home Office: what on earth do the British Government think are their obligations in trying to get to the truth of the Lockerbie crime?
The law department has sat back and its behaviour has been described as simplistic by Queen's counsel in Scotland. Its officers have merely said, " Well, if anybody brings us any evidence, that would be a different matter." Consider what has happened within the past seven days. A man said to a court in Beirut, "I put that bomb on Pan-Am


103." Surely that is a matter on which there should be an investigation. Ministers should report to Parliament on its progress.
All I am asking for at this stage is that some Minister says," We take this claim seriously. It may not be true, but we have sent out some detectives to talk to the Lebanese and Syrian legal authorities in relation to the court case." Perhaps those detectives will come back and report that that individual just mentioned Lockerbie in order to prolong his case so that he would not go to the scaffold for the quite different crime of murdering a Jordanian diplomat. We do not know whether anything active is being done.
Part of the reason for the dissatisfaction felt by some of us is that we are not persuaded that the British Government really want to get at what could be an extremely embarrassing truth. I find it absolutely incredible that in the 800 pages of her memoirs the former Prime Minister does not mention Lockerbie once. What she does say is that it was justified, of course, to send planes to attack the working class areas of Benghazi and Tripoli. As my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, North has already said, that is what happened. Planes were allowed to take off without any discussion. It was justified on the ground that the Libyan state would never again take part in terrorist activities. Who had better information from the intelligence services than the former Prime Minister?

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Geoffrey Lofthouse): Order. I fully appreciate the points which the hon. Gentleman made previously. With his long experience in the House, the last thing that he would ever do would be to cheat. He need not inform the House of that; the House knows it. However, he is now going a little beyond what the debate is about.

Mr. Dalyell: I shall return rapidly to the covenant for civil rights. The international travelling public—not only people like Jim Swire and Martin Cadman, parents of the British victims, but the Americans, including those youngsters from Rochester university and their relatives who were on that plane in the pre-Christmas rush only because seats had been cancelled by American officials—have a right to know that the British and American Governments are doing everything humanly possible to get to the truth of that crime.
I use the debate simply as a parliamentary opportunity to ask whether there will be a proper follow-up to what happened in Beirut. I took the trouble to go and talk to the Dumfries and Galloway police in Dumfries. I make no criticism whatever of the policemen. I am concerned about the Government Departments with which those policemen must liaise. I ask the crisp question: is anything being done to establish the veracity or otherwise of what happened last week in that Beirut court?

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Charles Wardle): The hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) said that he hoped that he was not a parliamentary cheat. The entire House will agree that he is no such thing. I have often listened intently and with respect to what he has said. The House will agree, however, that he occasionally allows his

enthusiasm and single-mindedness for a subject to allow him to travel at will across the boundaries and definitions of "order". But that is a matter for you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. While I respect his having made a point about Lockerbie this evening, I do not intend to follow him down that road, and I see from your demeanour, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that I would be wise to stick to that course.
The hon. Member for Newport, West (Mr. Flynn) made an admirably succinct speech. I share his admiration for the standards in the civil service, but disagree fundamentally with his suggestion that the civil service should not be more businesslike. He might have learnt lessons from the late 1970s, when one looked at the need then to control public expenditure. I predict that, in successive Parliaments in the years ahead, the civil service will have to live with ever tighter financial constraints. It is right that it should learn useful lessons from the world of commerce, never trying to run the civil service as a business but being more businesslike in its approach.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen) on obtaining this debate, which provides an opportunity to discuss—in some detail, as we have heard—civil and political rights in the United Kingdom. I know of his enthusiasm for cricket. As I listened to him, I thought to myself, as he started and as he aimed for a few boundaries, that perhaps he was emulating his good friend who once played for Nottinghamshire, the former captain of the West Indies, Sir Garfield Sobers, but, as minute followed minute and five minutes followed five minutes, I obtained the distinct impression that he was seeking to emulate Joe Hardstaff; he was here to bat all day, and all night if necessary. I think that he appreciates the point I make.
I believe that the hon. Gentleman is wrong in suggesting that the United Kingdom is in the dock in any way for its record on civil and political rights. That cannot be the case. Sadly, his claims about an interest in the subject are not borne out by the attendance in the Chamber this evening. The debate was at an early hour. He made a speech that might well have been listened to by more hon. Members, but, sadly, that was not the case.
I have some sympathy with the hon. Gentleman's desire to modernise some of the operating procedures in Parliament, but I disagree with him fundamentally when he suggests that written rights should somehow stand above the sovereignty of Parliament. Our system of parliamentary democracy, based on the complementary roles of two Chambers and buttressed by the independence of the judiciary, continues to serve us well, as it has done for a long time.
Before I discuss the subject of the debate, I should like to discuss two or three arguments that the hon. Gentleman made. He spoke about the right of silence. Under the law of all three UK jurisdictions, any person suspected of a criminal offence has, and will continue to have, the right to remain silent at all stages of the criminal process. The burden of proof on the prosecution to prove guilt beyond reasonable doubt remains unchanged.
The law on the right of silence that we propose to enact in England and Wales does not alter those basic principles of our law. The right of silence provisions simply allow the courts, in certain limited circumstances, to draw an inference from a suspect's silence when it is appropriate to do so, alongside other evidence, in determining guilt or innocence.
The hon. Gentleman discussed subjects that are familiar to him, and to me, because we have debated them long and hard in the Chamber and in Committees—immigration and asylum. I do not propose, although the temptation is there, to turn the debate into a fully fledged debate on those subjects. I draw just two points to the hon. Gentleman's attention.
He spoke about the abolition of appeals against refusal of visit visas. He did not—I think that he could not have done so—name any other country, with or without a written constitution, that signed up to the international covenant that is the subject of our debate that has a right of appeal against the refusal of visit visas. He knows, as the House knows, that that right existed for only 23 years, I think, on the statute book, and it is not a right whose demise will cause serious lament.
The hon. Gentleman also spoke about asylum seekers and about their being detained en masse. He might have explained to the House that less than 1.5 per cent. of asylum applicants are detained, and that they are detained because of the judgment that they will not comply with reporting restrictions. He also spoke about them as asylum seekers, and he well knows that the vast majority of people detained in Campsfield house are people whose asylum applications have already been determined and who are there enjoying a right of appeal, or perhaps have had their appeal refused and are awaiting fresh documentation from their home countries because they have destroyed their documentation.
I return to the the subject of the international covenant for civil and political rights. I shall shortly describe the way in which the United Kingdom meets its obligations and responsibilities under the covenant, but it may be helpful if I refer briefly to the origin and content of that instrument. Under the United Nations charter of 1945, the international community pledged itself to promote respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms.
As a first definition of those rights and freedoms, the universal declaration of human rights was proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in December 1948 as
a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations".
More than 40 years later, the universal declaration remains an essential statement of human rights by which Governments around the world can measure their progress in that field.
It was always recognised, however, that the universal declaration would not create legally binding obligations. Therefore, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights undertook the drafting of two legally binding instruments—one covering civil and political rights, the other dealing with economic, social and cultural rights. The two covenants were adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1966.
The international covenant for civil and political rights took effect in the United Kingdom in 1976. Based largely on those contained in the universal declaration of human rights, the covenant puts into legally binding treaty form a wide range of civil and political rights and seeks to meet the problems of protecting those rights in practice. The rights contained in the covenant are comparable to those contained in the European convention on human rights and include the right to life, to liberty and security of the person

and to freedom of thought, expression, assembly and association. More than 100 countries are now parties to the covenant.
The principal question that arises from our ratification of the covenant, and that which most clearly separates the hon. Member for Nottingham, North and myself, is the best means of providing for the rights recognised in the covenant in the United Kingdom. The hon. Gentleman believes that the only way to protect human rights in this country is to incorporate an international human rights instrument—like the covenant or the European convention on human rights—into domestic law. The rights and protections afforded to the British people would, he said this evening, be transformed if only such an instrument were entrenched in our constitution.
As the House well knows, that approach runs counter to the way in which rights and freedoms have been protected in this country over many centuries. The Government do not accept the case of those who argue that the incorporation into domestic law of the broadly drafted propositions of an international instrument would, in practice, clarify and strengthen liberties in the United Kingdom. On the contrary, it would weaken the current position by making the law unclear and uncertain.
The basis of liberty in this country is the long-established principle that a person is free to do as he wishes unless the law requires otherwise. Under our constitution, unlike that of many other countries, rights and freedoms are the natural possession of the individual, not something conferred by the state. That possession is assumed—it is not dependent on some constitutional device and it can be limited only by a democratic decision of Parliament. An individual seeking to know his rights has only to consult the law to establish what he cannot do; he does not have to consult a constitutional lawyer to find out what he can do.
If we accepted the view of the hon. Gentleman, we would overturn that principle and weaken the system of parliamentary democracy in this country. The areas of public policy covered by the general principles contained in the international covenant and the European convention have traditionally, and rightly, been the province of Parliament rather than the courts. Where this is necessary, it is for Parliament to enact detailed legislation on matters that affect the rights of the individual. It must have regard to the United Kingdom's obligations under those international instruments to which we are party, but the final decision rests with Parliament.
Incorporation would transfer this final responsibility to the judiciary, enabling the courts to strike down legislation that had been approved by Parliament. That would not, I believe, be a welcome addition to their present role of interpreting and enforcing specific legislation. The important issue is not the competence or good faith of our judiciary, but whether it is desirable or appropriate for such matters to rest with judges, who are not directly accountable to the public, rather than with democratically elected Members of Parliament. The Government's view remains that it is not.
Our opposition to incorporation does not, however, affect our continuing commitment to the promotion and protection of human rights in the United Kingdom. The lack of such formal provision in the United Kingdom does not detract from our major contribution to the preparation and implementation of instruments such as the international covenant for civil and political rights.
Article 40 of the covenant requires each state party to submit to the human rights committee established under article 28 a report at regular intervals on the measures adopted to give effect to the rights recognised in the covenant. The United Kingdom submitted a periodic report in 1977, 1984 and 1989; our fourth periodic report is due to reach the United Nations in August this year. A state party is subject to public, oral examination by the human rights committee on each of its reports; the United Kingdom was examined on its third periodic report in 1991.
The Government value the system of reporting and examination as an opportunity to demonstrate the effectiveness with which they meet their obligations under the covenant. Each periodic report contains a factual account of the legislation and administrative practice in the country relevant to the articles of the covenant and, collectively, the reports demonstrate the progress that we have made in ensuring that people in the United Kingdom enjoy the rights and protections for which the covenant provides. As with previous reports, copies of the fourth periodic report will, on publication, be placed in the Libraries of both Houses and be made freely available outside Parliament.
In describing the way in which the United Kingdom meets its covenant obligations, the fourth periodic report will be able to draw on a substantial body of legislative and administrative changes in recent years, which strengthen further the protection given in practice to individual rights and liberties in this country. I should like to take this opportunity to highlight some of the more significant developments.
Articles 2 and 3 of the covenant require nondiscrimination on grounds of race, gender or other improper grounds in the enjoyment of the rights recognised in the covenant.
The 1991 census of population was the first to include a question on ethnic origin, and has provided much information on the size and distribution of the ethnic minority population, which will help the Government, local authorities, employers and others to identify inequalities and plan action to overcome them.
The Courts and Legal Services Act 1990 and the Race Relations (Remedies) Act 1994 amend the Race Relations Act 1976 to strengthen the statutory protection against racial discrimination, while changes to the immigration rules expected to come into force later this year will remove virtually all the sexually discriminatory elements of our immigration control.
Article 7 prohibits torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. In order to meet its obligations under this article and under the United Nations and Council of Europe conventions against torture to which we are also party, the Government are keen to ensure that rigorous mechanisms are in place to enable people to lodge any complaint they may have about their treatment in detention.
So it was that, in April this year, my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary appointed a prisons ombudsman to consider grievances from prisoners once they had exhausted the internal complaint procedures. In

February this year, the Scottish prison service introduced a new system for dealing with prisoners' requests and complaints.
In Northern Ireland in December 1992, my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State appointed an independent assessor of military complaints procedures to provide an independent check on the Army's own procedures for dealing with complaints against its personnel serving in the Province.
In immigration, visiting committees have been appointed at the detention centres where detainees are held for more than a few days, while arrangements have been introduced by all police authorities in England and Wales for members of the public to be appointed as lay visitors to police stations.
Article 9 deals with the right to liberty and security of the person, and here the further safeguards introduced for those in police detention in Northern Ireland are relevant. The codes of practice for the detention and treatment of persons detained under the Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act 1989 came into force on 1 January this year.
Any police officer failing to comply with the codes is liable to disciplinary proceedings. The codes of practice represent a further important safeguard for those detained at the main police offices or holding centres. Other safeguards include the monitoring of all interviews on closed-circuit television and the appointment in December 1992 of an independent commissioner for the holding centres to observe and report on the conditions in which detainees are held.
Article 10 addresses the treatment of prisoners. Here we shall refer to the openness of the new parole system under the Criminal Justice Act 1991. Prisoners will receive a copy of their parole dossier, be interviewed by a member of the parole board and given reasons for their parole decision. We shall also be able to report on the new system for dealing with life sentence prisoners and on the development of sentence planning and through care in the prison service.
Article 13 concerns the expulsion of aliens, and a development of particular note, as the hon. Gentleman will know, is the Asylum and Immigration Appeals Act 1993, which came into force in July last year. The Act provides for accelerated and streamlined asylum procedures to ensure that unfounded asylum applications are dealt with expeditiously and with finality, while genuine refugees continue to be protected.
One of the main provisions introduced by the 1993 Act is an in-country right of appeal—with an oral hearing before an independent special adjudicator—for all refused asylum applicants, regardless of their immigration status. Together with other important safeguards contained in the Act, that represents a considerable strengthening of the rights of asylum seekers in the United Kingdom.
Other developments relevant to our covenant obligations include the provision of the Education Act 1993 for the establishment of grant-maintained schools of a religious character, which falls under article 18, on freedom of religion; the implementantion of the Children Act 1989 and the United Kingdom's ratification of the UN convention on the rights of the child, which are relevant to article 24, on children's rights; and the Welsh Language Act 1993, which, in accordance with the cultural rights


conferred by article 27, further promotes and facilitates the use of the Welsh language—even if that does not extend to the Chamber of the House of Commons.
A further provision—to which the hon. Member for Nottingham, North has referred before—is the first optional protocol to the covenant, which recognises the competence of the human rights committee to receive and consider communications from individuals who claim that their rights under the covenant have been violated.
As the hon. Gentleman will know, the United Kingdom has not ratified that optional protocol because, since 1966, an adequate and effective means of redress has been available to individuals in the United Kingdom through the procedures and institutions established under the European convention on human rights. The hon. Gentleman and I have debated that in the House on other occasions.
The protection afforded by that machinery is now familiar and well used. The Government do not believe that the position of people in this country would be significantly enhanced by the ratification of the optional protocol. The United Kingdom has signed the 11th protocol to the European convention, which, among other things, makes mandatory and permanent the right of individual petition to the European Court of Human Rights.

Mr. Allen: I thank the Minister for giving way with his usual courtesy.
If it is appropriate for an individual's human rights to be heard before a court in Strasbourg before German, Italian and French judges, why may they not be heard in a domestic court before a British judge?

Mr. Wardle: As the hon. Gentleman knows, even Joe Hardstaff used to come out for a second innings from time to time. The hon. Gentleman either has not been listening, or has missed the point of what I have been saying for the past 15 minutes or so. If he reads Hansard, he will see that it is absolutely clear. He and I have fundamentally different approaches. I have set out my view, and because of the lateness of the hour, I do not intend to repeat all that I have said.
I have demonstrated the United Kingdom's commitment to its obligations and responsibilities under the international covenant. They are to be seen in the legislation that we have enacted—which I have just listed—and the administrative reforms that we have instituted, some of which I have mentioned. They reflect the practical rather than philosophical approach to human rights that we have always taken in this country. That brings me to the point to which the hon. Gentleman has just alluded.
We are less concerned with fine-sounding constitutional provisions than with ensuring that, in reality, the rights and freedoms of the people in the United Kingdom are fully in accordance with our international obligations. The Government look forward to continued progress in this regard, within the framework provided by the covenant.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at two minutes to Ten o'clock.